The Hospital Story
by Acepilot6
Summary: Chapter 9 now up. When trying to fix your own mistakes, it's generally best to turn to those you love for advice. Phil:Lor, Tino:Tish. Reviews appreciated.
1. Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow

**The Hospital Story  
**Acepilot

8 - * - * - * - 8  
**Chapter 1 – Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow  
**8 - * - * - * - 8

"I hate hospitals," Lor groaned, running her fingers through her hair.

"Still?" Tish asked.

"Always," she responded. "And this one is even worse than the one at home."

"We're here for him," Tish reminded her. "Try not to mope too much."

"I know, I know," Lor said. "I'm here, aren't I? I want to see him. I want to know he's getting better. I just..."

"Hate hospitals," Tish finished for her. "Come on, they've had enough male bonding time, let's go say hello." Tish pushed herself off the corridor wall and tugged her dress straight, stepping up to the door opposite them and moving to push it open, before turning to face her friend again, seeing that she hadn't moved. "You coming, Lor?"

"Of course, of course," she said, pulling herself out of her crouch against the wall and crossing the hallway to join Tish, who knocked once before pushing the door open. "Hey, guys," she called into the room, striding in confidently while Lor slipped in behind her. "How're you feeling this week, Tino?"

Tino looked from Carver, with whom he had been 'bonding', to his girlfriend and offered her a small smile. "Hey, Tish. Better now that you're here." He looked beyond Tish for a second and nodded to the blonde standing there. "Hey, Lor. How's it going?"

"Me? I'm fine," she said, trying to hold Tino's gaze. But it was like staring at the sun. The more she looked at him the more she wanted to look away.

Tino had spent their childhood as such a young and vibrant person – not quite as athletic as some but definitely an active, healthy young man. Now, they were a few months away from senior year and he found himself bedridden, struck down by disease just when his life was really beginning. Lor knew as well as everyone else that he would be better by then, out and free, that it was all curable, that it was just a matter of time and patience and care, but it was hollow comfort when she had to stand here and stare at him, lying there, pale and tired.

She went through the motions as they exchanged pleasantries, watching with idle interest as Tish slid into the seat next to Tino's bed, placing her hand in his, watching his eyes light up slightly at this simple gesture. She contributed to the discussion where necessary, but so much of it was reiterating what was happening in the real world, something Tino seemed to be disconnected from – something they were, by necessity, his lifeline to.

But there was only so much of it she could take.

During a lull in conversation, she jumped on an opportunity, tugging on Carver's collar. "Hey, Carv. Let's perhaps give the lovebirds some private time, huh?"

Tish blushed red but Tino smiled appreciatively. "Thanks, guys. Not that I don't love seeing you..."

"Hey, no problem. We'll be back in a little while," Carver told them. "No playing doctor in the meantime though, huh? No matter what the surroundings may suggest."

When they were out of the room, however, Carver groaned, leaning against the wall and hanging his head in his hands. "I need a smoke."

"How do you do it?" Lor asked.

"How do I do what?" Carver replied, looking up at her.

"How do you go in there and...pretend it's all normal? Act like you're not sitting in his hospital room, watching him...wither."

Carver shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know. I just...I just have to, so I do. You do it too, you know."

"Some days I don't think I do," she told him. "Some days it's all I can do to just stand there and not break into tears and ask him how he's surviving this...place."

"You hate hospitals," Carver noted.

"I really, really do."

Carver shrugged. "Well, look at it this way. At least he's in the best place possible." He gestured to their surroundings. "I mean, you might not like hospitals, but you gotta admit, this is a pretty snazzy one."

"As a hospital, it's much better than the one at home," she admitted. "But at the same time I hate that he's so far away. And what that does to Tish. And...well, what it does to me, as well."

"You never realise how much you take him being there for granted, huh?" Carver said. "Come on, I'm going for a cigarette out the front. You want to come out for the fresh air?"

She shook her head. "I think I just need to find somewhere to go sit for a while."

"Rec room's down the hall," he said, pointing vaguely in the direction away from the elevators, of which he climbed into one. "I'll be downstairs if you change your mind."

She smiled at him. "Yeah, because there's so much _fresh_ air down there. I swear, I've never seen so many people trying to determinedly to kill themselves right outside a hospital."

"Hey, we don't have to travel so far when we come down with emphysema," he pointed out as the doors slid closed between them.

Lor sighed as she watched the numbers next to the elevator descend, and allowed herself a moment, pinching the bridge of her nose and allowing a couple of tears to fall.

"I hate hospitals," she muttered, turning on her heel and strolling toward the rec room.

8 - * - * - * 8

After two wrong turns down various corridors, Lor was just about ready to give up on finding the rec room, before a harried and tired looking nurse stopped her and asked where she was going, pointing her in a completely different direction from the one Carver had suggested. Lor, grateful for the help, thanked the nurse profusely and finally ended up in the right hallway, heading toward a well-lit door labelled _Recreation Room: Level 5_.

The noise coming from beyond the door nearly gave her second thoughts, however.

She leaned against the door, listening to the sounds of applause and commentary that were coming from beyond it. She did not, however, immediately recognise the sport that was being listened to, and this bothered her somewhat. Finally, she pushed the door open, curiosity getting the better of her.

Said curiosity was nearly immediately sated by the sight of gymnastics on the television. This held her interest for barely a few seconds, however, distracted as she was by the sight of the person watching it.

She had, of course, seen people getting far too into football on the television and begin throwing phantom passes, or into basketball and start jumping around. She had never seen anyone become interactively involved with a gymnastics broadcast, however, and therefore the sight of the young man balancing delicately on the back of a couch took her somewhat by surprise.

To his credit, if he was startled by the sound of the door opening, he didn't show it, merely turning on his heel very delicately, shifting his weight so as not to tip the couch, to come to face her. "Hi," he said, biting his lower lip. "Can I help you?"

It was hard to tell, what with him standing on a couch and all, but she guessed the boy speaking to her was a little bit taller than she was, albeit much, much thinner, his gauntness seemingly only emphasised by the bandanna he wore. His pale appearance reminded her of Tino, and though he wore surgical scrubs she had no problem as picking him as definitely not being a doctor.

"I just wanted somewhere to sit down for a minute," she said, indicating an arm-chair placed near the couch, which she quickly slumped down into. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."

He shrugged. "That's okay. They just won't let me use the gym."

"There's a gym in the hospital?" she asked, somewhat surprised.

"For rehab patients," he explained, pacing back and forth along the thin back of the couch, bouncing very slightly every now and then, as if preparing to mimic the impressive moves being displayed on the television. "And I'm definitely not a rehab patient, so I may not use it. They're driving me insane."

"I'm sorry to hear it," she told him. "Are you...in here a lot?"

"I'm here for the time being," he explained.

"What are you in for?"

"To get better," he said, offering a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "What about you? I'm guessing by the civvies that you're not a patient."

"Ah, no," she said, looking self-consciously at her clothes for a moment, suddenly feeling as if she might be the one dressed unusually rather than the other way around. "I'm just here visiting a friend who's in here for a while. We're from out of town, you see."

The boy snapped his fingers, pointing in the direction from which she had come. "Blonde kid, in for a stint...Tony?"

"Tino," she corrected him. "Do you know him?"

"Not really," he said. "Being on bed rest most of the time has a tendency to dull the likelihood of running into each other."

"You're on bed rest?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Most of the time. But if I just lay there all the time I'd go crazy."

"Are you a gymnast?"

He laughed, loudly. "God no. I'm way too big." He looked down at himself for a moment. "Or I was, anyway. No, I played a bit of soccer, but professional athletics was probably not in my future. Good thing, too. Can you imagine being in sports for the rest of your life? Doesn't bare thinking about."

Lor held his gaze for a moment. "I'm hoping to go into professional sports."

The boy smiled sheepishly. "Ah. Sorry."

"That's okay," she told him. "We're all allowed our opinions, even negative ones."

"In that case, would you like to hear my feelings on the music of Britney Spears?"

She laughed. "Well, _everyone_ is entitled to _that _opinion."

The sheepish smile he wore blew out to a full grin as he stepped off the back of the couch, sliding down into a more conventional use of the furniture. "There was a kid in here for a while who felt that current pop music was quite clearly the _definition_ of quality tunes. I'm still lobbying for a record player so I can bring in something worth listening to. As it is I just leave the TV on VH1 and hope for the best."

"Sounds reasonable," she told him.

The sound of someone clearing their throat came from the doorway, and Lor turned to see Tish standing there, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. "Carver said you were in here. We've got to get going soon, so d'you want to...come say goodbye and all that?"

Lor nodded, pushing herself up from the chair. "Yeah, of course," she said, before turning back to the boy on the couch. "Nice meeting you. Good luck with the gymnastics."

"There's some guy up in the ICU with a better floor technique, but I'll make the All-Hospital Team yet," he assured her with a hopeful glint in his eyes and a brief wave.

She waved back as Tish lead her from the room. The brunette girl looked back over her shoulder as they left, asking once they were out in the hall, "Who's that?"

Lor shrugged. "I dunno. Some guy."

"What's he in here for?"

"To get better, apparently."

"Huh," Tish said, apparently sated. "Come on. You up to seeing Tino again?"

Lor came to a halt. "What's that mean?"

Tish shrugged. "I know it makes you uncomfortable, Lor. I don't blame you. To be honest, it's pretty rough on me, too."

Lor's teeth were on edge. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just...well, I -"

"Hate hospitals," Tish said, placing a hand on Lor's shoulder. "We all do. He'll be out before you know it."

"I know, I know," Lor said. They were already outside Tino's door, and Lor found herself taking a deep breath. "Alright. Let's do this."

8 - * - * - 8

_Alright, so a bit of back story. This fic was inspired by a number of things, but mostly it was just a case of waking up at 3 in the morning and sitting down and writing. Before I knew it, I had one chapter, then two, then three...it just kept going and then it was 60 pages long and has since itself inspired me to write yet another fic - _Dating_ - which can be found in the Rugrats section._

_There's more of this to come - much more of it, to be honest - and I hope you enjoy it. The next chapter will be up soon. Reviews are always appreciated._

_Thanks, as ever, to Lord Malachite, who has been invaluable in this project from day one, helping me with characterisations, dialogue and plot points that would be much lesser for his contributions._

_Acepilot 11/01/11_


	2. Darker With The Day

**The Hospital Story  
**Acepilot

8 - * - * - 8  
Chapter 2: Darker With the Day  
8 - * - * - 8

"What a crappy day," Carver commented. "In this weather, I don't even want to go for a smoke."

"I guess if you moved to Seattle then you'd probably kick the habit entirely," Lor pointed out from where she was seated on an old wooden table, leaning on the window of the rec room and watching the rain trickle down against it. Far below she could see just the tops of umbrellas moving, occasionally catching a glimpse of someone in a raincoat. The gardens on the hospital grounds, normally full of kids getting their chance at some fresh air, were abandoned today as the rain hammered down upon them.

"And yet they never say that in the anti-smoking ads," Carver pointed out. "They're clearly not reading their target market correctly."

"You've been watching way too much _Mad Men_."

"He looked better today," Carver said.

Lor had noticed this practice of conversation beginning in her friends for some weeks now. Tino was never brought into a conversation via a segue any more – no, if they were going to talk about their ill friend, then he was brought into the conversation like an elephant in a china shop – very suddenly and with a tendency to bring things crashing back to earth.

"A bit," Lor agreed, somewhat reluctantly. If she was being honest with herself, she didn't think she'd seen much improvement in her friend for weeks, but then, that was rather the whole point of this conversation – Carver wasn't particularly trying to be honest with himself, and she was trying her best to indulge him.

She wondered, for not the first time, how Tish managed to watch Tino every week, struggling to find improvement in him, and not break down into hysterical tears. Or maybe that was what she did when Lor and Carver were out of the room.

Voices coming from the hall interrupted her train of thought. "I _don't need_ this stupid wheelchair."

"You're meant to be resting. Dr. Carmichael said that you shouldn't be up and about – consider yourself lucky I even got you out of the room."

"Oh, bugger what Lucy says. I'm fine."

"You're not _fine_, Phil. Have you seen your bloodwork?"

"As if you know what it all actually means."

"I might not but Dr. Carmichael does and she says you're meant to be resting so resting you are. We are going to sit in the rec room and chill and relax and _you_ are going to stop trying to get out of this chair before I strap you into it by force."

"I'd like to see you try."

The wheelchair preceded the voices into the room by seconds. Hypothetically 'resting' in it was the boy she had met last week, who this week was in a more familiar hospital gown, hooked up to an IV drip and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else but stuck in a chair. Pushing it was a second young man, this one with short hair that, in the right light, looked vaguely purple.

The wheelchair bound patient smiled when he saw her. "Hey. It's you."

"It's me," she confirmed, smiling back at him. "Not so much with the gymnastics this week, huh?"

"Please oh please don't give him any ideas," the boy pushing the wheelchair begged. "It was enough of an effort to get him into the chair once."

"And the fact that I had the energy to put up such resistance didn't tip you off that _I'm fine_?"

"No, it just suggested that maybe they need to put you on sedatives as well."

"Thanks a bundle, Tommy." The boy in the wheelchair – Phil, his friend had called him – turned to face her again. "You see what I have to put up with?"

She grinned. "I'd be taking advantage of the luxury of getting wheeled around while it lasted."

"Yeah, well...it's lasted a bit too long for my liking." He threw a quick glare at Tommy. "If you're going to play chauffeur, could you at least wheel me over to the table?"

"Yes, my liege," Tommy offered a little tip of an imaginary cap, pushing the chair over to the table that Lor leant against as she looked out the window. "Anything else, my liege?"

"A coffee would be great."

"Dream on, kid," he said, looking at the line hooked into Phil's arm, checking that the fluid was flowing through it. "I'll get you some water."

Phil growled in the back of his throat and rolled his eyes before turning to face Lor. "I could kill for a coffee," he said. "But they make me 'too active'."

"We can't have that," Lor told him.

"I'm Phil by the way," he said. "I know you've probably worked that one out already, but...y'know. My doctor would probably give me a clip around the ear for not introducing myself properly. She's big on manners."

"Pleasure to meet you Phil," she responded. "I'm Lor. Sorry to see you're not feeling so well this week."

"I'm feeling fine," he protested.

"What's with the drip, then?"

Phil shrugged. "Eh, I haven't been able to get rid of him since we were toddlers. He's not that bad once you get to know him."

"I heard that," Tommy called from the other side of the room, before turning with a mug of coffee in one hand and a glass of water in the other. Phil looked hopeful for a bare second before the glass was placed in front of him. "Hi, I'm Tommy Pickles. It's good to meet you."

"Lor McQuarrie. And this is my friend," she said, remembering Carver and gesturing toward him, "Carver."

"Just Carver?" Tommy asked.

"Like Bono," Carver told him.

"Or Madonna," Phil pointed out.

Lor laughed. "It's Carver _Descartes_, but he thinks it sounds _girly._"

"Your secret is safe with me," Tommy assured him.

"Not me. I'll tell everyone I meet," Phil said. "Not that that's many people, but...hey."

Carver made a somewhat disgruntled noise. "In exchange for betraying my secret, don't suppose you can show me how to change the channel on this TV?" he said, indicating the set hanging over them which was currently showing an ancient re-run of _Happy Days_.

"But this is the one where Fonzie plays bongos!" Phil exclaimed. "No love for the Fonz? Really? More's the pity." He pointed to the table. "The right hand side opens up if you push down on it hard enough. The remote is in there."

Carver did as instructed and pulled the remote out from its cubby hole. "Can I ask why the remote is hidden in a secret compartment?"

"Because otherwise the girl in 227 keeps finding it. And there are enough people in pain in this building without subjecting them to her taste in television."

"You don't care much for other people's tastes, do you?" Lor asked before she could stop herself.

Phil turned back to face her. "Pardon?"

Lor bit her lip and felt blood flow to her face. She hadn't meant to make such a mean or presumptuous comment but it was out there now. "Sorry. I just mean...well, last week it was pop music, now this week it's somebody's taste in television."

Phil cocked an eyebrow and shrugged. "I like what I like, I guess. Sorry to have offended you."

"You didn't offend me," she rushed out. "I didn't – I mean -" she sighed. "Alright, let's try this again. Sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I was in total agreement on the music thing last week and I'm sure you're right on the TV thing too."

Phil held her gaze for a moment, his forehead crinkling before he shrugged. "Okay. You're right, though. I guess I'm not terribly tolerant of things I don't like."

"I'm pretty much the same," she told him. "I don't think it's bad. It just -"

"Came out wrong, I get it," he assured her, smiling again. "How are you at card games?"

She blinked at the sudden turn in conversation. "Uh, fair-to-average, I guess."

"Five-hundred?"

Lor had to think back. "Not for a few years, but I'm sure it'd all come back to me."

"Good," he said, grabbing the wheels of his chair and manoeuvring himself around to face the table properly, before calling to his friend. "Pickles, if you could be so kind as to get the deck of cards out of the table and bring them over here?"

Tommy sighed but got up from where he and Carver had settled into watching TV and brought Phil and Lor the deck of cards. "Anything else while I'm up?"

"We need a third," Phil pointed out.

Tommy looked between Phil and Lor with an analytical gaze. "No, I don't think you do. Try something you can do with two players. Memory's about your speed, I would think."

Phil rolled his eyes at Tommy but Lor, choosing to head off the conflict at the pass, picked the deck up off the table and started shuffling it. "Snap?"

"He should be resting!" Tommy reminded them as he sat back down on the couch.

Phil raised a finger as he turned to his friend, retort on the tip of his tongue, but Lor grasped his hand and pulled him back around. "Authors?"

He sighed but nodded. "Okay, sounds good."

Lor smiled at him, squeezing his hand before letting him go. "Good."

It had the desired effect of making Phil smile, and Lor felt a sense of accomplishment flow through her. Phil settled back into his chair as Lor began dealing the cards. "So, how's your friend this week? Tino, yes?"

"He's okay," she told him. "A bit more energetic this time around, which is nice."

"Is he having a consultation or something?" Phil asked. "Just a bit unusual for visitors to be in _here_ without the patients they're visiting."

"A consultation. I'll have to tell her that one," Carver offered from the couch.

Lor rolled her eyes. "Not a consultation, no. Carver and I are giving he and his girlfriend some private time."

"That's nice," Phil said. "You guys all been friends long?"

"Forever," Lor said. "Well, since we started school, anyway."

"I know the feeling," Phil told her as they picked up their cards. "You got the Ace of Spades?"

"No," she told him. "The seven of clubs?"

"Nup."

"You know, you never answered my question."

"Yes I did. You asked if I had the seven of clubs and I said -"

"I meant the one about the drip."

Phil raised an eyebrow. "You're really that curious about why I'm attached to some plumbing?"

"Well, you were kind of evasive last week as well," she told him.

His eyes widened a little in incredulity. "Sorry. Didn't realise I was required by law to share everything with somebody I've just met."

"Sorry," she said, raising her hands in defence. "Didn't mean to pry, just making conversation."

"Do you have the Queen of Hearts?"

She laid the card in question down on the table without meeting his eyes.

He sighed, quite loudly. "It's glucose."

"What is?"

"The drip. I'm not allowed solids at the moment, because of some new medication they're trialling me on. It's why I'm meant to be resting. So they're pumping glucose through me to keep my blood sugar levels up. The first time I was in here and they did this to me, they missed the vein and pumped my arm full of sugar water, which was not fun."

"I'll bet," she told him. "Your go again."

"I know," he said. "You still in high school?"

"Yes," she told him. "Junior year. What about you?"

"Same," he said. "Classes by correspondence and all that."

"What do you want to do when you finish?"

Phil paused. "The Queen of Diamonds."

Lor slid the card across to him.

"I wanted to be a chef," he said, lying the four Queens down on the table in a neat pile. "Now I'm not so sure."

"You're one up on me," she told him, sorting her cards out. "Beyond the possibility of sports, I've got absolutely no idea."

Phil smiled at her slightly. "You've just got to find something you love doing, I think."

The sound of a throat clearing from the doorway to the rec-room interrupted them. "Excuse me."

Phil, facing away from the doorway, made a distinctly unhappy face. Lor looked over his shoulder to see a tall, African-American woman there in a doctor's coat, clipboard in hand and a pen tapping against it. "Can we help you?" she asked.

"I appear to be missing a patient," she said. "Who, if I'm not mistaken, was meant to be on bedrest."

Phil went beyond rolling his eyes and appeared to roll his entire head back in exasperation at this statement. "I'm relaxing," he said without turning around. "If this game was any easier-going I'd be asleep." He winked at Lor as he said this, offering her a grin to reassure her this was just self-defence and not meant to be insulting at all. She smiled back at him.

"Well, relaxing or not, you're also late for our appointment," the doctor informed him. "I expect you back in your room in five minutes, please."

"Eugh. Okay," he agreed, clearly reluctantly. "Five minutes."

The doctor stared at the back of his head for a moment, before turning to Tommy and instructing him, "Remember you can drag him if you have to." And then she was gone.

Phil smiled at Lor again. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay," Lor told him, "we've got to get going in a minute anyway."

"Oh well." He pushed himself out from the table and got up onto his feet, albeit a bit unsteadily. "Pins and needles," he winced. "I'll be right in a second."

"Get back in the chair," Tommy ordered him, standing up. "You're already in Dr. Carmichael's bad-books, I wouldn't push it any further if I were you."

"Oh, she loves me," Phil said, confidently. "I'm not worried about her."

"Well, I am," Tommy said. "Now come on, I'll take you back to your room."

"Alright, alright. One minute." Phil sat back down and grasped the table leg to stop himself from being dragged off. Tommy stepped back a moment and Phil turned back to Lor. "You guys coming back down next week?"

Lor nodded. "Pretty much until further notice."

"Well...maybe I'll see you then," he suggested. "You're way better at cards than Pickles here."

"Thanks," Tommy said, sardonically. "It was nice meeting you, Lor."

"You too, Tommy. And..." she turned back to the patient. "Nice meeting you properly, Phil."

"Back at you," he said, reaching up and taking her hand, shaking it, albeit from a relatively awkward angle. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but there's a very nice lady waiting in my bedroom to do unmentionable things to me. Tommy, if you would?"

"You can really propel yourself in this thing, you know," Tommy reminded him, as they pushed toward the doorway.

"Yeah," Phil said as they rounded the corner. "But then I wouldn't be relaxing."

And then they were gone.

Lor smiled at their retreating voices until Carver spoke. "We going to head back to Tino's room now?"

"Yeah, of course."

8 - * - * - 8

"So," Tommy began as he wheeled Phil toward his room. "What the hell was that about?"

"What?"

"With _Looor_," Tommy stretched the name as far as it would go. "When did you meet her?"

Phil shrugged. "Last week. She came into the rec room."

"And your eyes met across the Monopoly board and you swooned at once?"

"Hardly. We talked about gymnastics. And I don't swoon."

"Oh, you swoon. You swooned your ass off today. If you'd swooned any harder you'd have fallen out of your seat."

"I don't know what you're implying."

"_Play cards with me, Lor,_" he mimicked Phil, poorly, "_tell me your life story, Lor_. _You're so entertaining, Lor_."

"Are you quite through?"

"For now."

"She's a girl I've happened to run into a few times. She's nice. That's all."

"Okay."

"Good."

There was a pause, and they continued down the corridor in a pregnant silence.

"Go on, say it," Phil ordered him.

Tommy sighed. "_Be sure to come back and see me next week, Lor_."

"I don't sound like that."

"You do when you swoon."

8 - * - * - 8

_And so another chapter comes to light. I hope you're enjoying this fic - it's been really great to write and to just play with a different view of these characters. I like going back with the same characters I've used before and saying alright, but what if _this _had happened. They're still the same characters at heart, but what happens to them changes how they ultimately end up, their experiences in life change the people they become. So this isn't Phil and Lor from Tertiary, this is Phil and Lor in a different situation again._

_Reviews are, as always, appreciated._

_Acepilot 12/01/11  
_


	3. Gates to the Garden

**The Hospital Story**  
Acepilot

8 - * - * - * - 8

_Chapter 3: Gates to the Garden_

8 - * - * - * - 8

"Alright, Mr. DeVille," Lucy Carmichael called out as she crossed the threshold into Phil's hospital room. "I hear from Dr. Matthews that we had a bit of a rough night last night so - "

She pulled up short, looking up from her clipboard and doing a double take at the sight she found before her. After Matthews' description of Phil being up half the night and in extremely poor health for most of it, she had rather expected to find him lying atop the covers of his bed, hospital gown in disarray and growling at every slight movement and sound.

Instead she saw the bed was immaculately made, and there was music coming quietly from the television, where Phil had hijacked the DVD player once again. Phil himself was seated in one of the armchairs the visitors usually used, flicking through a book that he didn't seem to be absorbing any of at all, and dressed not in a gown but in mis-matched scrubs.

"Well, this is a surprise," Lucy commented.

Phil looked up from the book. "Oh, hi. Sorry. I was a million miles away."

"I couldn't tell," Lucy said, deadpan. "Have the nurses been by already?"

"No," Phil said, puzzled. "Should they have?"

"You made your own bed?"

Phil shrugged. "I felt like I should contribute around here."

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "I'm not going to start giving you pocket money, if that's what you're angling for."

Phil rolled his eyes at her. "Ha ha."

"To be honest with you, I was rather expecting to find you in something of a different state," she told him. "Dr. Matthews says you were feeling pretty lousy after last night."

"I'm fine," he assured her.

"You're fine," she said, looking down at the chart. "Phil, the amount of fluid you lost last night, I'm reluctant to go along with that diagnosis."

"Well, it wasn't the best night, no, but I'll be okay. All in a week's work for me."

"You've cleaned your room and you're out of bed before 7am," she said. "What is going on, Phil?"

"Why should anything be going on? Is it that radically unbelievable that I might just find myself with some excess energy this morning?"

"Yes," Lucy told him. "You know that you're wearing two different colours of scrubs."

He looked down at the navy pants/forest green shirt he was wearing. "Yes."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Well, I'm evidently not a doctor, so wearing matching ones just kind of screams 'pyjamas', y'know. Not exactly a great look."

"Uh-huh," Lucy said. "Because what you're now wearing is just so fashionable."

"Are you implying something?"

"Who is she?"

Phil's eyes narrowed. "Pardon?"

"You've cleaned your room, you've made your bed, you're up, showered, dressed in what you feel passes for regular clothing, and all on a morning after you've by all accounts had a crappy night. You're expecting someone. A girl, I would imagine. Is it someone I know? Did you and Wally make up?"

Phil groaned. "No, we didn't, and no, I'm not expecting anyone. Well, nobody more than I would on any other Saturday."

"You don't get this gussied up for Tommy and Chuckie and your friends. Phil, you might be able to pull the wool over your own eyes but I've been at this for a good deal longer than you have. And I've seen what boys are like when they're trying to impress a girl. So, come on," she said, sitting down on the bed and putting the clipboard down. "Who is she?"

"No-one," Phil insisted.

"Not one of the _girls_, is it? Kimi?" Lucy grinned mischievously. "Angelica?"

Phil made a horrified face. "Why would you say that to someone you know is having problems keeping food down?"

Lucy laughed. "That blonde who was here last week. You were playing cards in the rec-room with her." Phil said nothing, and Lucy grinned. "I knew it. Do you have a date, Phil?"

"I don't have a date," he told her. "Yes, she said she'd drop by and see me, but she's here visiting someone else and I really only just met her last week and it's hardly like _I'm _going to be going out with anyone any time soon."

"Why not?"

He stared at her as if she'd gone mad. "Well, for a start, there's the whole think where I can't go anywhere," he pointed out. "Where would I take her? _Want to go to the theatre? There's no play or movie or anything but they're doing a bowel resection at three._"

Lucy laughed. "You spend all your time stuck up here but there's a bunch of places you might take her. There's the cafe downstairs. Or the courtyard. Or..." she struggled for a third. "The gift shop?"

Phil watched her closely, attempting to gauge her seriousness. "Right."

"Or you could just take her for a walk," Lucy suggested. "It's a big hospital. When you're just starting to see someone, that's the best way to do it, I think. In high school, I was meant to go out with this boy named Adam, and we were going to go to the movies, but the theatre was overflowing, and instead we just walked around the city half the night, talking for hours and hours..."

"Yeah, well," Phil cut into her reminiscence. "Might I remind you that I'm _not _going out with anyone. I have my doubts she would want to go out with me, anyway."

"And why not?"

Phil looked at her as if she's slipped off the deep end. "Excuse me? How many people do you know who answer the question 'What do you look for in a date?' with 'Cancer'?"

"A lot of cancer survivors go on to lead perfectly normal lives and a lot of them do date, Phil."

"I'm not a cancer survivor, I'm a cancer patient," he pointed out. "And until I am otherwise it's all a bit of a moot point."

Lucy recognised the end of a conversation when she heard it. "Alright, Phil. Okay." She bit her lip, weighing up whether she should voice her thoughts on this, before deciding to throw caution to the wind. "Just...don't let this run your life any more than you have to, okay?"

He held her gaze for a long moment, before finally asking, "Does that mean you won't put me on the drip today?"

"Guess again, buster."

He groaned. "Oh, please, I don't want it."

"After last night, you've got no choice. You're not on solids and I don't even know if I want you drinking much water, and that means you're on the IV."

"If I _was_ trying to get a girl, I'm sure dragging a drip around with me all day would be a really good look."

"Better than passing out in front of her," Lucy told him. "Now, you've got hours before visiting time, so let's get on with your check-up."

8 - * - * - * - 8

"There's something different about you today," Tish said. "But I can't put my finger on what."

They'd been on the road for nearly forty-five minutes, with just under fifteen to go, when Tish finally said it. Lor repressed the urge to groan. She could see the forthcoming conversation with incredible clarity and really, _really_ didn't want to have it. "I don't know what you mean."

"I mean that you look...different, somehow. I can't work out how, but you...hmm."

Carver, perhaps wisely, said nothing, his face unreadable behind his sunglasses as he watched the highway for their forthcoming exit.

"Well, I don't know what it could be," Lor told Tish. "Are we far off, Carv?"

"No," Carver said. "But I'm paranoid we're going to miss it." He paused. "And I know what's different."

Lor growled.

Tish perked up, spinning around in her seat to look straight at Lor, where she sat in the back. "I knew it! I knew I wasn't imagining things. What is it? You're not dressed terribly differently, you haven't done anything with your hair...have you?"

"I haven't done anything with my hair. I haven't done anything," she insisted.

As they pulled off the highway onto the exit, which Carver, to his credit, definitely did not miss, the car passed through a particularly bright beam of sunlight and Tish's jaw dropped. "You're wearing _make up_."

Lor frowned.

"You are! Just a little bit of base and some eye liner." Tish narrowed her eyes. "I can't remember the last time you wore make-up. Why are you wearing make up?"

"No reason," Lor said, realising her plausible deniability was shot to hell now but she wasn't giving and inch on this if she could at all avoid it.

"It'll be for Phil," Carver offered, now no longer worried about missing the exit and feeling free to talk again as he navigated the streets toward the hospital, a route that he could, by now, pretty much work through in his sleep.

Tish's eyes widened again. "Who's Phil?"

"It's not for anybody," Lor insisted.

"Phil's a patient at the hospital that Lor has a crush on," Carver explained to his other passenger. "They spent last week playing cards. And flirting."

To describe Tish's expression as shocked would be an understatement of immeasurable proportions. "Lor?"

"If you weren't driving," she told Carver, "I'd smack you so hard right now." She turned to face Tish. "I was not flirting with him."

"You totally were."

"Quiet," she growled at Carver, "you won't be driving forever."

"Lor."

The tone in Tish's voice caused Lor to bite back a curse. She could never hold out against Tish when she got all...maternal like that. "He's just a guy," she told Tish. "A nice guy who I've run into a few times."

"Are you interested in him?" Tish asked.

"I don't know. Maybe."

"What's he in the hospital for?"

"He didn't say."

"Cancer," Carver intervened.

"He didn't say," Lor insisted.

"It's not hard to work out."

Tish's face took on a worried look as she reached out and took Lor's hand. "Be careful, Lor."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean...you know. I don't want you to get hurt or anything."

"Why might I get hurt?"

"Well...never mind."

"No, no," she said to Tish, dragging the conversation back. "Why might I get hurt? Because I've made a friend who happens to be sick?"

"Because you're flirting with a guy who might be dying," Carver said.

"Carver!" Tish hissed.

"What? No point beating around the bush, right?" he defended himself. "I mean, let's face facts. Odds aren't good if he does have cancer and is stuck in there as a long term patient."

"You don't know that he has cancer," Lor insisted. "And even if I was flirting with him, or going out with him, or whatever, how is it any different from you, Tish, and Tino?"

Tish turned back to face out the front of the car. "Because you don't know this guy. Tino was our friend before he got sick, Lor. He was _my boyfriend_ before he got sick. I'm worried you're setting yourself up for pain."

"Well, I'm not," she told them as Carver pulled into the hospital's car park, pulling a ticket from the barrier machine and cruising in. "He's just a nice guy who I happened to meet at the hospital, and as long as we're here visiting Tino, I see no reason why I shouldn't drop by and say hi to him."

"If you're sure," Carver said, slotting into the first parking space they came to. Previous experience had taught them that going hunting for better spaces tended to be more trouble than it was worth in this parking lot.

"I just don't want to see you get hurt," Tish emphasised.

"I won't," Lor said.

But the thought preyed on her mind somewhat as they rode the elevator up to the long-term care ward.

Tino, as ever, smiled broadly when he saw them, offering his usual, weak but still caring, "Hey guys," as they filed into his room. His doctor nodded to them as he departed, allowing the four friends some private time.

"How are you feeling this week, sweetie?" Tish asked, sitting down in the chair next to Tino's bed and taking his hand. Lor watched as her friend squeezed Tino's fingers with hers, and the struggle which Tino put up to clench hers back. It was a bad week, clearly, as he was pale and struggling.

She wondered if she could do it. Sit by somebody as they struggled and comfort them, help them. Help him, she guessed, as long as she was deep in her mind she might as well be honest.

"I'm not so great," Tino said, with unusual honesty for the subject. Normally he insisted he was fine no matter what, but clearly today was serious – he really wasn't doing so well.

"We'll wait until later to spring the homework on you, then," Carver suggested.

Tino smiled at him, before turning his attention to Lor. "Hi, Lor. You alright?"

She nodded. "Yeah, sorry. Million miles away."

"Can I join you?" he asked, cracking a grin.

"Any time."

A little while later, when she and Carver, by unspoken agreement, left to give the couple their weekly time alone, he turned to head back to the elevators, while Lor looked toward the rec room. "Are you going to go see him?" Carver asked.

Lor shrugged. "I did say I would."

Carver sighed. "Be careful, huh, Lor? At least find out what he's in here for?"

"I'll see you later, Carver," she said, suddenly not quite so hospitable.

Lor stalked the hospital corridors, suddenly feeling rather tetchy. She knew that Carver was probably right, but she didn't particularly want to admit it to herself – especially with the confused state she was already in. Finding friends wasn't something that had always come easily to her, and since she was young she had surrounded herself with the three friends she knew she could trust. Previous efforts to meet new people and make new friends had frequently gone very badly awry.

So what if it hadn't for once? Just because the guy happened to be a patient in a hospital, was she meant to ignore the fact that she seemed to get on great with him? Just because maybe he was dying -

Lor groaned.

This was getting her nowhere fast.

She trudged into the rec room and found it disconcertingly empty and silent, the TV off and the place abandoned. She pouted for a moment before a hand tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey, you're early."

She turned to find Phil standing behind her, holding loosely onto an IV stand nearly as tall as he was, a smile on his face despite bags under his eyes.

"Well, I had planned to be fashionably late," she told him, "but then I remembered that I hate being fashionable."

"Pity," he said, "as you can probably tell by my outfit, I'm highly fashionable."

She looked him up and down, taking in his dark blue scrubs. "You look like you're in pyjamas," she told him.

"Well, I was going to dress more snazzily but Lucy talked me out of it," he said. "How long are you going to be here for?"

She was momentarily taken aback by the question and paused. "Well...I don't know. A while, I guess."

He smiled. "I've been cooped up in my room for more than twenty-four hours. Would you like to take a walk with me?"

She felt a cautious optimism return to her. "Yeah, sure."

"I might need you to drag my drip," he let her know, "but trust me, it's very easy."

"I think I can be of service," she assured him. "Lead on."

8 - * - * - * 8

_In the short time I've been writing this fic, I've enjoyed it more than anything I've done in years. Building up a new universe, using familiar characters in new ways...it's why I write fanfic basically. That, and the little pulse of pleasure I get when I see the confirmation message that says I've posted a new chapter. And of course, the reviews. : )_

_As ever, a big thanks to Lord Malachite, the man behind the scenes, and whose own fic has been inspiring me a bit lately.  
_

_Thanks to everyone else for reading, and it would be wonderful if you dropped a review, to tell me what you think of the fic - if you love it, hate it, think it's a massive waste of time, whatever._

_Acepilot - 15/01/11_

_Oh, and coming next: **Moving**, the sequel to Dating, will be up in the Rugrats section soon. If you're looking for something a bit more old school, I guess.  
_


	4. She Passed By My Window

**The Hospital Story  
**Acepilot

8 - * - * - 8  
**Chapter 4 – She Passed By My Window  
**8 - * - * - 8

Lor shut the door to Tino's room quietly behind her, trying not to disturb Tish and Tino. Carver, for the week, had begged off sick – with anything else she would have assumed he was lying, but she knew how seriously he took these visits to Tino, and so she was inclined to believe him.

Despite Carver's absence, she was in a good mood. Tino was looking much stronger, and they were talking about letting him out of the room with them next week. She knew Tish was excited and found it somewhat infectious, flowing on to her and perking her mood right up. She barely felt the floor of the ward underfoot as she stalked the corridor.

She didn't realise that she wasn't even thinking about where she was going as she made her way to the the hall that contained Phil's room.

Last week with Phil had been...something. They'd talked for hours – not about anything in particular, but a hundred little things, from their tastes in music and film to their hobbies and pets. She didn't think they'd really spoken of anything of real substance – though she knew some people who would argue that their taste in music and film may well be the most important thing to any potential relationship – she still didn't know much if anything about his family, beyond the fact that he was a twin among siblings, or his life before he ended up in hospital, or – beyond the fact that it was cancer, which he had slipped in during the course of the conversation – what was so wrong with him that it had confined him to such a long stay in the hospital, but nevertheless, she felt something special had happened to them last week.

She felt a little like they'd been on a date.

It was ridiculous, she knew. They weren't dating. He was just somebody she dropped in on when she was at the hospital.

But he was a nice guy. And a part of her was starting to really look forward to seeing him each week.

She reached the corridor in question and pulled up short. Sitting outside Phil's door was a girl, a long-haired brunette curled up with her knees tucked against her chest as she sat against the wall. A tall ginger-haired young man leant against the opposite wall, twirling a pair of glasses between his fingers of one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other.

"Did you ring your Dad?" the girl asked her companion. They both spoke in hushed whispers but the ward was so quiet this afternoon that it was impossible not to hear.

He nodded. "He's finishing up early and will get Min from Tommy's place," he told her.

"Good, good," she said, reaching up and brushing at her eyes. Lor realised she was or had been crying. "Glad that's taken care of."

"I should just go get her," the red-head said, pushing himself off the wall and putting his glasses back on. "I mean, what use am I going to be here, really, think about it - "

"Oh, don't you dare," the girl told him, "we need you here."

He stood in place for a moment before slumping back against the wall. "I feel so...useless. And disconnected."

"You're too connected to stop being so now," she insisted, "so give it up."

The boy sighed and leant against the wall.

Lor realised that she was probably being quite rude and eavesdropping on what seemed to be a reasonably private conversation, and stepped forward, coughing lightly to make herself known. "Excuse me," she said, slipping silently down the corridor toward them. They might, she thought to herself, not be anything to do with Phil, maybe they were with the girl in the room across from his, maybe they were just grabbing a quiet moment in a random corridor.

"Can we help you?" the girl asked, rising slowly to her feet.

"Uh, I was just going to go and see the guy in this room here," she said, pointing to the door to room 221. "Sorry to interrupt."

"You can't," the girl told her, stepping in front of the door slightly. "Sorry."

Lor was somewhat taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"

"Who are you?" the red-head asked, stepping across the corridor to stand alongside the girl. She wondered briefly who they were to each other – she didn't get a boyfriend/girlfriend vibe from them at all but the guy seemed quite defensive.

"Uh...my name is Lor," she said, realising that, aside from Tommy, she really hadn't met any of Phil's friends, and they had no reason to realise that she was engaged in a growing friendship with him herself. "I'm a...friend, I guess, of Phil's."

"Oh, you're Lor," the girl said, arching an eyebrow but seeming to accept this at face value. "I heard Phil mention you a few times, sure."

"So...can I go see him then?"

The boy shook his head again. "No, sorry. Phil's...not taking visitors today."

"Is he alright?" Lor asked, a chill running up her spine at the thought that something was wrong with Phil.

Before logic caught up with her. Of course something was wrong with Phil. He was in the long-term-care ward of a children's hospital. You didn't get into one of those without having something very wrong with you indeed.

He had seemed so vibrant, so full of life, every time she had gone to see him. The idea that he would be otherwise just hadn't occurred to her.

"No, he's not," the boy told her, "today's...well, it's not a good day today."

From within the room, in the dead quiet of the ward, she heard a faint sound of retching. Lor felt her face colour slightly, and was glad for the interruption when the door to the room opened and Dr. Carmichael stepped out, whom Lor recognised instantly from when she had come to collect Phil from their walk last week.

"Lor, it's nice to see you again," she said, smiling at her. "That said, I don't think Phil's up for visitors today." She looked between the three teenagers – Lor standing in between and opposite the two flanking the door. "Have you met Phil's family?"

"Uh...we were just getting acquainted," Lor said. "Look, maybe I'll just go."

Dr. Carmichael – she knew that Phil always referred to her as Lucy but she just couldn't bring herself to do so – smiled at her sadly. "Maybe that's for the best," she said. "I'll be sure to tell him you dropped by."

"Yeah, definitely," the girl said, stepping forward and offering Lor her hand. "We'll let him know when he's a bit more...lucid. I'm Lil, by the way. And this is Chuckie."

"It's nice to meet you both," she said, shaking first Lil's hand and then Chuckie's. Looking more closely at her, she could see something of a resemblance between Phil and Lil, though she knew it was hard to tell, aware as she was that Phil's appearance was hardly natural given the hardships his body had been through over recent times. "I'll...I guess I might see you later."

Chuckie nodded and smiled at her, the defensiveness of his posture relaxing somewhat. "I hope so." Lil smiled at her as well.

But then the sounds coming from the room cut between them again, and they were only louder for a moment as an older woman pushed the door open from the inside and poked her head out. "Uh, Doc...I think maybe we need you again."

"Of course, Betty," Dr. Carmichael said, turning back around. "I'll be right there."

Lor backed away down the corridor for a few steps, watching as the doctor and the woman she quickly deduced to be Phil's mother switched places. Lil stepped up and hugged the older woman, who was struggling to hold back tears, while Chuckie rested a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged off before reaching around and pulling the boy into an embrace with her free arm.

Lor felt she was intruding on something very private and personal, and turned around as she retreated faster.

She was glad Carver wasn't here this week. She could do without the comments about what it meant to get close to someone who was sick. After all, she had just had it very graphically demonstrated to her. She would be surprised if Phil, all things considered, was even vaguely thinking about the fact that she was coming to visit him today. Maybe it wasn't the best of ideas.

She came back to Tino's room and pushed the door open a crack. Inside, she saw Tino was asleep, but Tish was still seated next to his bed, hand in hand, stroking his arm in soft, soothing strokes.

She smiled.

She'd come back next week. And hope for the best. Because sometimes that was all you could do.

8 - * - * - 8

_Alright, so that's another chapter. I'd like to thank those of you who have read this, and especially those who have reviewed. Chapter 10 is almost finished, to give you some idea of how far there is to go in this fic, so I hope you'll stick with me and enjoy it as I work with these characters in this new setting. Reviews are, as ever, appreciated._


	5. We Came Along This Road

**The Hospital Story  
**Acepilot

8 - * - * - 8  
Chapter 5 – We Came Along This Road  
8 - * - * - 8

Lor watched as Tino and Tish slowly made their way across the courtyard toward her, under the gaze of a watchful nurse who stood on Tino's other side but didn't interfere with Tish's grip, allowing the younger girl to guide her boyfriend along. Tino looked paler than she thought she'd ever seen him and was clearly finding the goings a struggle, but he was persisting nonetheless, a brave smile on his face for Tish. He looked over to where Lor was seated and indicated in that general direction for Tish, who nodded in return and began leading their little triad over in that direction.

As she watched them approach, she heard footsteps and the squeak of a wheel coming from the other direction. She didn't turn around. She had a good idea of who it would be.

"Hi," he said from behind her. "Mind if I sit down?"

Lor shrugged. "Sure."

She, again, didn't look as he sat, but rather felt him – the body heat that suddenly joined her on the bench, the sound of his breathing.

"Sorry I missed you last week," he told her, "I wasn't exactly...doing so well."

"I completely understand," she said. "It's not your fault."

"Eh, still, you know, I feel I should really make the effort to be well on weekends. After all, who wants to be sick on their days off?"

"Days off from what?" she asked.

"I still have to have school, you know," he said. "As long as the brain works they've decided I am required to pass all my classes this year. I think they hope I might be out of here for senior year."

She watched Tino as he crossed the yard ever so slowly, leaning more and more heavily on Tish as they made their way to her. "Here's hoping."

She heard him sigh. "Why do I get the feeling that this I've somehow done something wrong?"

"You haven't done anything wrong," she assured him. "I'm just..."

"You're just what?" he asked, before sighing again. "Never mind. Is that Tino?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that's Tino. The girl with him is Tish, his girlfriend."

"You two close?"

"The closest," she told him.

"That's good. Is it because of last week?"

"Is what because of last week?"

"This...whatever it is. The fact that you won't look at me. The fact that you're talking to me in monosyllables."

"I'm talking to you in complete sentences, thank you."

"I'm sorry I was sick last week," he said. "But I'm sick all the time, you know. You just hadn't seen it...quite like that before."

"Don't apologise for being sick," she insisted. "I understand."

"Yeah, but you're acting strange because of it." He reached across the small gap between them and took her hand, causing her to jump, startled. "Tell me what's wrong. I thought we were getting to be friends."

"We were, we are."

"Alright, fine," he said, "we are. When you want to tell me what's wrong, then we'll talk, sure."

She heard him push himself up off the bench, and the squeak of one poorly oiled wheel from his IV stand as he walked away.

Tish and Tino finally reached her moments later. "Hey, Lor," Tino said, sweaty and exhausted but triumphant. "How's it going?"

"It's going great Tino," she told him. "It's good to see you up and about."

"Who was that guy you were talking to?" the blonde asked. "I recognise him from somewhere."

"He's a patient," Tish provided. "His name is Phil."

"Ah, yeah, he's in 221. I see him at the check-ups every now and again," Tino said, slumping – with Tish's assistance – into the seat next to Lor. She moved to stand, but Tish shook her head, kneeling down next to Tino. The nurse retained a respectful distance. "Where's Carver?"

"I think he went out the front to have a smoke, but I suspect he's trying to hit on some hot nurses," Lor suggested.

"Sounds about right," Tino said. "There's a really cute one in pediatrics."

Tish cleared her throat.

"Or so I hear," Tino continued without missing a beat.

"Hmm," was the only sound Tish seemed to make in response, but her boyfriend turned and batted his eyelashes at her, which caused her to roll her eyes.

"So, anyway," Tino said, stretching slightly and looking as if it was the greatest feeling in the world. "It's nice that you've made a friend."

"I guess," Lor said, "but I wouldn't want you to think that you're not my top priority when we're here."

"The merest thought hadn't even crossed my mind," he assured her. "Though now it has..."

"Ha ha," Lor responded.

"He looked a touch upset with you," Tish commented. "And you didn't meet his eyes once."

"We just didn't have much to talk about this week," Lor said.

"Really," Tish said. "Because you didn't see him at all last week."

"Well, it's been a quiet time in both our lives," she said. "He's in hospital, I've been in school, what is there to talk about?"

Tino narrowed his eyes. "What happened to you?"

"What?"

"A couple of weeks ago you came back from your little walk with him so excited you were bouncing around the room."

"I was not."

"You were too," he pushed. "You'd talked about nothing for hours and you really felt like you made a connection. Your words, not mine. And now...what? You've got no more nothing to talk about?"

"I'm here to spend time with you, you know," she snapped, feeling somewhat pressured and annoyed about it.

Tino smiled and rubbed her shoulder. "I know. But if you're getting to be friends with this Phil guy, then maybe you should...I don't know. Put a little effort in. Why the sudden change of heart?"

"No reason."

"Really."

She had always hated it when Tino made her feel rotten for being a jerk. Even when she was justified, Tino was the little voice in her head telling her off for acting like a dick.

But that little voice in her head that sounded like Tino was probably the only reason she still had the friends she had.

"Stop looking at me like that," she told him.

8- * - * -8

Lor stood outside room 221 for the second week in a row with a certain reluctance to go in. Lil and Chuckie weren't there to stop her this time, and there was no sound of someone vomiting coming from within, but her struggles to get across the threshold had more to do with her unwillingness to confront what was on the other side, rather than something happening on this one.

That, and the door was open a sliver, and through the gap, she could see and hear something she was somewhat reluctant to interrupt.

Phil lay sprawled across the bed, which he shared with a girl – a short, Japanese girl who held his head in her lap and listened as he spoke.

"I don't get it. I mean, I get it. I guess I just wish I didn't."

"I think that's perfectly reasonable."

"That's what I love about you," he told the girl. "Even when I make no sense, you still get it."

"It's what I'm here for," she said. "Look, maybe it's best that this all comes out now. I mean, would you really want to invest too much in this only for it to come out later that she just can't cope with it?"

Lor realised with a start that they were talking about her. She was pretty sure that, for once, her ego wasn't just running away with her. This actually was a discussion about her and her issues with Phil's illness. And that hardly seemed fair. She barely knew what her issues with Phil and his illness were herself, so how did that make it alright for them to be talking about it without her even in the room?

"I just thought there was something there," he said.

"Maybe there still can be," the girl told him.

Lor took a deep breath and knocked on the door, solidly enough to try and make it count but also trying desperately to stop the door from moving, and thus giving away the fact that the door had been open and she had been listening in.

"Come in."

She pushed the door open gently and stepped into the room. Phil pushed himself up slowly from the bed and from the girl's lap – and Lor felt a slight pang of jealousy that she worked hard to repress. "Lor."

"Lor?" the girl asked him.

He nodded, not turning back to face the girl on the bed but maintaining eye contact with the blonde. "Lor."

"Really," the girl said, getting up off the bed herself. "And how are you today, Lor? Can we help you with anything?"

Lor blushed and stepped backwards a pace. "Uh...look. Maybe I'll just come back later."

"No, no, come in," Phil said. "Lor, this is Kimi Watanabe, my best friend. Kimi, this is Lor McQuarrie."

"Pleased to meet you," Lor said, nodding to the other girl.

"Charmed, I'm sure," Kimi said. She looked distinctly unhappy with Lor's presence and the blonde felt like she was treading on very thin ice here.

"Kimi, can I talk to you outside for a moment," Phil said, grabbing his friend by the wrist and walking at great pace toward the door. "We won't be a moment," he assured Lor as he made for the exit, pulling up short when his seemingly-forgotten IV stand started to topple over. Lor made a lunge for it but Kimi got there first, pulling it up and holding on to it as she dutifully tailed Phil out, rolling her eyes – at his forgetfulness? Lor wondered – before pulling the door shut behind her. Lor heard quiet voices beyond the door and tried to put them out of her mind.

She stepped away from the door to assist herself in this effort, deeper into Phil's room, looking around. She recognised that technically it was identical to Tino's room, facing the north side of the building. But where Tino's room was a cold and clinical hospital room, Phil's room was not. The curtains were red instead of white, like Tino he'd brought his own pillow, but his room also contained a small stereo, a bunch of picture frames on a table under the window, and a Sega Saturn attached to the TV in the corner. There were spots of decoration, a small open cupboard serving as a bookcase of some sort, loaded to overflowing with distinctive white-striped Penguin paperbacks, and an old, worn blanket draped over an armchair next to his bed.

This wasn't a hospital room any more. This was Phil's room, or as near an approximation as he could make it.

Her heart sank, realising that he'd been in here for some time and clearly expected to be in here for longer still.

Which didn't make what she was struggling over any easier to deal with.

She looked at the photos on the desk, dragging herself as far away from the door as possible, unsure if she was avoiding running away or listening to Phil and Kimi's conversation. There were four in total, in disparate frames ranging from a very nice, classy one to one that she would guess was the product of a child or children's fumbling efforts in a primary school art class. She picked up one at random, simply trying to focus on something, anything, to get her mind off of what was happening on the other side of the door.

The picture in her hand was of Chuckie, Lil and a third person – a young man – in formal wear, albeit in the boys case relaxed somewhat, both having loosened their ties and collars, Chuckie out of his jacket and with sleeves rolled up although the other boy still had his on. Chuckie was leant against a tree in a backyard or park somewhere, can of coke in hand, laughing at something someone had just said. Lil was sprawled on a picnic blanket between the two of them in a manner that suggested a healthy lack of respect for formal wear – something Lor wholeheartedly approved of – while the other boy was seated in a fold out chair, balancing a glass of water on its arm and seemingly telling a story – probably what Chuckie was laughing at.

It took her nearly a full minute of staring at the picture to realise that the third person in it was Phil.

It was not Phil as she had ever seen him. In this photo, the resemblance to Lil was obvious – his hair was around his ears – overgrown, she suspected – and a rich, shaggy brown. He was not chubby but not thin either, certainly a fuller figure than she knew him as, and his eyes had since taken on a somewhat sunken appearance, though they were still as bright and happy in this photo as she saw in him now. Other than today, obviously.

She stared at the photo in wonder, at the three people in it and how they used to be.

She put it back down on the table and drifted over the other ones. The largest of the four was, by Lil's dress, from the same event, but a much larger, organised group shot, a clan of mixed adults and teenagers in their finest clothes. She recognised Tommy, Phil's mom and Kimi in addition to Chuckie, Phil and Lil – and, intriguingly, Dr. Carmichael, though this appeared to be from before Phil was sick, which made her wonder why Phil's doctor would be at a formal, seemingly family oriented event. She tried briefly to match adults to children and picked somebody who was obviously Chuckie's dad, guessed at a tall black girl being Dr. Carmichael's daughter and was able to take a stab at Kimi's mother, though that was all she was willing to dedicate herself to.

The third photo was of Phil and a shorter, extremely thin man with thinning grey hair, Phil with his arm around his shoulder and a broad grin on his face. In this shot, Phil was starting to look a little haggard though nothing like how he looked now, and though the man he was with in the photo looked happy there was also something pinching at the side of his eyes in the shot, as if he didn't quite want to be there.

The fourth photo was very recent, and was of Lil holding a baby, clearly newborn, touching it's nose and watching it go cross-eyed. She raised an eyebrow at that one but turned away from it as she heard the door open, facing the now open doorway and the young man standing in it. "Hi. Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it," she said.

They stood in silence, observing each other.

"So, is there something I can do for you?" he asked.

She looked immediately at her feet. "Uh...I just wanted to say I'm sorry," she offered, feeling her teeth rest on edge and trying not to flinch away from this conversation.

"Really."

"Really," she said, "I am sorry. I didn't mean to be so...well, unpleasant before."

"You weren't unpleasant," he told her. "You were a bit distant. Cold. Sending a few mixed signals."

"I get it, I get it," she cut into his list. "I said I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why were you like that? Why are you sorry? Why did you come back to see me again? Why did what happened last week effect you like this?"

"That's a lot of questions."

"Well, I'm a curious guy."

Lor sighed. "I don't know," she said.

"You don't know what?"

"I don't know anything," she told him.

"Well, I find that highly doubtful or you'd have failed out of high school by now."

She glared at him. "You're not making this any easier."

"_I'm _not making it any easier?" he asked. "I think I'm perfectly entitled to not make this any easier."

"Why? Because someone who you've known for all of a month doesn't talk to you one day?"

The instant the words left her mouth, Lor heard them back in her mind and instantly regretted them. "I'm sorry," she repeated, resisting an urge to groan. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

Phil didn't say anything, but his expression darkened. "Maybe you should just go, then. If that's what you think, then maybe you should just go."

For a bare moment, Lor agreed with him, the thought that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't worth the effort and the hurt it was clearly causing him – and, for that matter, it was causing her – and that they'd both be better off if they forgot all about it.

But another part of her knew that if she gave up on this, here and now, she'd regret it. If she let this thing beat her, if she didn't put in the effort with Phil, then she'd wonder about it the rest of her life, she'd regret it for the rest of her life, and she didn't need that.

"I freaked out," she said.

"I wouldn't have noticed," Phil offered, sarcastically.

"Okay, could we do this without the sarcasm for five minutes, please," she growled. "I'm trying to explain myself here and it's hard enough without you...judging me over it."

"Fine," Phil said, shrugging his shoulders and sitting down on the bed. "Go on."

Lor sighed and tried to regather her thoughts. "The first few weeks I knew you, you seemed so..." she struggled for the right words. "So vibrant. So...well, alive. I mean, I knew at some level you were sick. But there's a difference between helping you carry your IV stand around as opposed to standing outside your hospital room and hearing you...and being told that I can't see you because you're too sick to see me."

"Well, it wasn't any picnic for me, either," he cut in, clearly unable to hold his thoughts in any longer.

"Yeah, well, sorry that I couldn't deal. It scared me, you know? I mean, here I am, I've met you, and you're becoming a really great friend, and you're a really sweet guy and yeah, maybe I'm a bit attracted to you, but then it hits me – for all I know, you're dying, and I didn't know how to deal with that. The idea that maybe one week I'll come by and be told something happened and you're dead or a vegetable or paralysed or whatever, and I'll never see you again, and I don't know how I'd deal with that, and I don't know if I _can _deal with that, so yeah, I freaked out. I mean, sorry if I'm not handling this as maturely as you think I should, or as well as you and your friends have. I've never been through anything like this before in my life and I just don't know _what to do_ and I'm sorry that I disappointed you but there it is."

"What, you think that somehow I've got all the answers?" Phil asked, rising from the bed. "That I've got it all worked out? Well, I don't!" he told her, his voice rising rapidly. "I'm fucking terrified that this'll all go wrong, that I won't go into remission, that I'll get a clot or whatever, that I'll just wake up one morning and that'll be it. _I _don't know how to deal with that, and it scares the life out of me. I got diagnosed nearly a year ago and I've been in here for five months and let me tell you – it gets no easier. I just try to get on with my life as best I can. And on one of the few occasions when I succeed in actually meeting someone – someone who's not just stuck in here with me – it's a bit of a blow when suddenly they shut me out. I thought we had something there. A couple of weeks ago, when we went walking..." a slight smile seemed to tug at the corners of his mouth. "But then, if you're going to just focus on last week -"

"I'm sorry! I said I'm sorry!" They were yelling at each other by now, Lor realised, and could probably be heard across half the ward, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

"Well, good for you, I'm glad you're sorry. So, what? This is it? Because you can't deal with the fact that yeah, I've got cancer. I might die. On current odds, I probably will. If you want to walk out on this, then do it now. I don't need you to hang around if you're just passing time to give your friends some space. I thought maybe we were friends, but..."

"I don't want to walk out!"

"Then what do you want?"

"I want to be your friend," Lor told him. "I want to get over this. I want to get to know you because I think I really like you. I think you're a great guy and I want to be able to put the fact that this is not exactly an ideal situation out of my mind. I want to be able to believe that I'll see you outside this hospital someday."

"Well, I want all that too," he agreed, voice finally softening. "Do you want it enough to be able to get past this?"

"I hope so," she said.

He looked her in the eye, stepping closer and taking her hand in his. "Let's try this again. My name is Phil DeVille. I'm 17 years old, from North City, California. I'm in my junior year of high school. I have a brother and two sisters. I work at a coffee shop when I'm not hanging around a hospital. I have cancer."

"I'm Lor McQuarrie," she said in return, stepping slightly closer. "I'm 17 years old, from Bahia Bay, California. I'm in my junior year of high school. I have fourteen brothers. I'm currently unemployed. I really don't want to screw this up."

"Then don't," Phil suggested.

"Easier said than done."

"Isn't it always?"

Phil leant across the gap between them and kissed her, ever-so-softly, on the lips. For just a moment, the hospital, the IV, the room, everything faded into the background and they were just a pair of teenagers. They could have been anywhere.

And then the moment was gone, and Lor realised that she was standing in a hospital room with this rather intriguing new friend of hers who had his lips on hers, one hand wrapped around the small of her back and the other still holding hers. She jerked suddenly, perhaps a little too suddenly on the polished tile floor, and went down hard. The IV in Phil's arm caught on the material of her shirt and yanked out, causing him to yelp quite loudly. Lor managed to roll and prevent herself from hitting her head on the ground, while Phil simply clutched at his arm, biting his lower lip.

Lor, from her newly discovered perspective, stared at the ceiling. It seemed as good as anything to look at.

She had just been kissed.

And then she'd _fallen over_.

She decided the floor wasn't so bad a place to be right now. If she was all the way down here, he might not notice the mortification spreading across her face.

He reappeared in her field of vision, a curious smile on his face and a crimped IV tube in his left hand. He held the other one out to her. "Yes, that's right, I can actually knock a girl over with a single kiss."

She took his hand and pulled herself off the ground, though given the sum difference between their physical strength she came close to simply pulling him to the ground. Once she was back on her feet, she found Phil staring at her, trying to read her expression, but she had no idea what to even express. They'd made things right. And he'd kissed her.

She felt sure that if she saw herself in a mirror right now, she'd look like a completely dorky lovesick schoolgirl, but oddly, she was kind of alright with that in this moment.

"Are you alright?" he asked, starting to look concerned at her lack of vocalisation.

She realised she kind of had to say _something_, and so settled her gaze on his arm. "Sorry, did I hurt you?"

He shrugged. "I've had worse."

"Oh. Good."

They stood there in silence for a moment, before Lor felt prepared to say anything with a deeper meaning. "Okay, for a start, wow. That wasn't exactly what I was wanting to have happen when I walked in here." Phil looked apprehensive for a moment, causing Lor to backpedal rapidly, waving her hands in front of her and feeling even more ridiculous for it. "Not that I'm complaining! Look, if you hadn't noticed from my actions earlier, this kind of thing is not exactly my forte."

"What kind of thing is that?" Phil asked, slowly.

"You know...the whole...going out. Thing." She paused. "Are we?"

"What?"

"Going out?" She flinched at how juvenile the words sounded in her mind, and tried to think of a better way of phrasing it.

Phil beat her to the punch. "I don't know. I don't know why I kissed you. Other than that I wanted to. I haven't done anything like this in a pretty long time. I haven't _wanted_ to do anything like this in a very long time indeed."

"I see," Lor said, withdrawing slightly, before realising that Phil still had a grip on her hand from when he helped her up.

"No, wait," he said. "I just...I wake up every day not knowing what it's going to be like. Some days, I feel practically normal. Most of the time I just have...days. And then there are days like -"

"Last week?" Lor interrupted.

He nodded. "Yeah. Kind of makes it hard to plan dates around, you know? I'd hate to disappoint you – ask you to come for a visit only to find me puking my guts out."

"I wouldn't be disappointed," she told him.

He arched a doubtful eyebrow.

"Okay, I'd be disappointed, but I would hardly hold it against you."

"Let's just take it one day at a time, maybe."

"I can do that," she assured him.

"Good," he said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Visiting hours are nearly over, I'm afraid."

"I should probably get back to the guys, say goodbye to Tino and all that," she said. "And is Kimi waiting out there for you?"

Phil frowned and flinched a little. "Oh, yes."

"Maybe I'll let you grovel for forgiveness, then," she suggested. "And maybe get a nurse to fix that IV for you. I'll be back next week."

"Good," he said.

They stood completely still, staring at each other without a word, searching for the right way to say goodbye. Lor simply shrugged and willed herself to go with her instinct, kissing him very quickly on the lips before simply saying, "Goodbye," and all but running from the room. She was past a puzzled looking Kimi, to whom she waved, and most of the way to Tino's room before she let her brain catch up with her, at which point she sat down on a nearby, sturdy bench rather than allow herself to fall over again.

When she finally came into Tino's room, she found her friends idly chatting while watching some old cartoons on the TV that hung over Tino's bed. Her entrance was, however, apparently a sufficient distraction for them.

Tish looked up and raised an eyebrow. "So, how'd it go?"

"What do you mean, how'd it go?"

"I thought it was pretty self explanatory," Carver told her. "How did it go? Did you talk to your boy Phil?"

"He's not _my boy_," she said, and was very aware of how defensive that must have sounded. "I mean, yes, we talked."

"Did you apologise?" Tino asked.

"I don't see why you all assume that _I _must have done something wrong in this situation."

"We like to play the odds," Tino told her.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, yes, I apologised. We had words."

"People don't have _that _look in their eyes after they have _words_," Tish told her. "Did you kiss him?"

"No!" she said.

Tino sighed and reached for his bedside table, pulling open the drawer and fishing out a CD. Lor raised an eyebrow at this as he handed the plastic case to Carver.

"Really?" Tish asked, looking doubtful.

"...well, he kissed me first. I guess I kissed him there at the end."

"Ha!" Tino exclaimed, snatching back the CD from a disappointed looking Carver, who shot her a glare suggesting treachery before digging ten dollars out of his wallet and handing it to Tino, followed by another ten for Tish.

Lor's jaw dropped. "...Tish? Tino?"

"Let's have a word," Tish said, leaping up from the bed, stuffing the $10 note into her pocket and pulling Lor bodily out into the hall.

"Okay, ow," Lor said, wrenching her hand from Tish's once they were out of the room.

"Okay, wow!" Tish said. "He kissed you! You kissed him back?"

"Eventually," she admitted. "It was a bit of a...surprise."

"To say the least, I'm sure. Have you ever...you know, before?"

Lor snorted derisively. "Yeah, who was I going to kiss before? Thompson? Peter? No, Phil was definitely the first."

"Does he know that?"

"I thought about telling him but then I decided he didn't need the pressure. Or the ego boost."

"Seems reasonable," Tish said. She stared at Lor for a moment as if she wanted to say something but the words wouldn't come.

Lor stared at her in return. "What?"

"What?"

Lor groaned "You want to say something. Are you going to say it?"

Tish raised a hand and opened her mouth, as if she was indeed about to say...something. But then she lowered her hand and closed off. "No, it's nothing."

Lor looked doubtful, but decided that she was too caught up in the moment, too excited about the turn her life had taken this afternoon to really want to know what Tish wanted to say – especially if it was, as she suspected, about her budding...whatever it was with Phil.

"Okay then," Lor said, wrapping an arm around Tish's shoulder and guiding her back toward Tino's room. "You really bet that I'd kiss Phil?"

"I bet he'd kiss you," Tish said. "There are few sure things in life, you've got to get on the ones that come up."

8 - * - * - 8

_As ever, reviews are greatly appreciated._


	6. Hold On To Yourself

**The Hospital Story  
**Acepilot

8 - * - * - 8  
Chapter 6: Hold On To Yourself  
8 - * - * - 8

It took Phil a moment to work out what the strange noise was that was permeating his room. He'd not heard it in there before and at first was worried it was some strange piece of equipment that Lucy planned, for whatever reason, to hook him up to.

Then it clicked.

Lucy was _whistling_.

"What are you doing?"

She stopped as she turned around from where she was watching a heart-rate monitor she had him hooked up to, scribbling notes. "What do you mean?"

"You're whistling," he said. "You're whistling _Save the Last Dance for Me_ by the Drifters," he finally placed the song.

"Well, if you knew what I was doing, then why did you ask?"

Phil rolled his eyes. "I'm so glad I have such a mature doctor," he said. "Seriously, what's got you in such a good mood?" The mischief maker in him forced him to smile broadly. "Did Randy save the last dance for you last night?"

She threw him a glare but smiled at him nonetheless. "That is absolutely none of your business, Phillip. I'm in a good mood because it's Saturday and I won't have to put up with you being in a terrible grump any longer."

"I've not been in a terrible grump," he objected.

"Oh, you've been in the grumpiest of grumps," she insisted. "You've been a right bear all week and the nurses have been complaining to me about you."

"Really?"

Lucy paused. "It wasn't about Anna, was it?"

He shook his head. "No," he said. "We didn't really get along. I mean, I'm sorry and everything, but I didn't really know her all that well."

"Because you know that if you want to talk about that, there are always -"

"I'm not talking to those stupid counsellors, they're creepy," he cut her off.

She shrugged. "As you wish. Anyway, you've been in a foul mood all week and now it's Saturday and you won't be any more and I'm hoping we can parley this into a week of upbeat, happy Phil."

"Why, in particular, would I be an upbeat happy Phil after one Saturday?"

"Because Lor is coming," Lucy said in a sing-song voice.

"And you think just like that one visit from her is going to improve my mood?"

"I'm working off that hypothesis, yes. Did you get all your homework done?"

"It's on the table," he said, waving toward it.

"Good," she said. "Well, you seem to be doing well today, and I'm happy to announce that you're back off the IV for as long as you can keep food down."

"Well, when you say it like that you make this great thing sound really ominous."

"That's my job," she said. "So, what are you and _Lor_ going to do today?"

"I don't know," Phil said. "She might not even drop by."

"Oh, she'll drop by," she said. "You don't just kiss a guy and then disappear off the face of the earth. Anyway, you're not the only person she visits, remember?"

"How did _you _know we kissed?" Phil demanded.

"You're not exactly a young man of subtlety and grace, Mr. DeVille," she told him. "Last Saturday afternoon you were in the giddy haze of somebody who had definitely been in the throes of new relationship bliss."

"We are not in a relationship," he told her. "We're just...taking things one step at a time."

"Good, good," Lucy said. "Be aware then, that you may have to be careful with the making out. People who aren't in a relationship and do that kind of stuff generally get themselves into trouble."

Phil stuck his tongue out at her. "I am perfectly capable of moderating my own kissing, thank you."

"Who are you kissing?"

Phil bit back a curse, looking over to the doorway to see Lil and Chuckie standing in it, Lil bouncing Melinda up and down in her arms.

"Our mother," he said. "On the cheek."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "_Looor_."

"Will you people stop saying her name like that?"

"Lor? The blonde girl from the hallway?" Chuckie asked. "You and her are -"

"Me and her aren't _anything_," he said.

"They kissed last week," Lucy said.

"Does doctor-patient confidentiality mean _nothing _to you any more?"

"What do you think it going to happen? The baby is going to rat you out to your mother?"

"Out of the three of them," he told Lucy, casting a critical eye over the line up in the doorway, "I trust Melinda the most."

"Well, thanks," Chuckie said. "Have I ever told on you about anything in my life?"

"Pray tell how Mom found out about the cat I had last year?"

Lil coughed awkwardly. "Actually, that was me."

Phil stared at her, incredulous, before turning back to Chuckie. "My apologies."

"Thank you."

"So," Lucy attempted to steer the conversation back on course, "you _are_ expecting to see Lor?"

Phil grit his teeth. "Yes, I am expecting to see her. And if I see anyone else while I'm seeing her, I'm going to be distinctly unimpressed."

Lil grinned – a particular grin that Phil recognised as being glee that she had mischief to throw out into the world. "Aww! Philly has a -"

"Don't say it."

The grin didn't fade from her face one iota.

Chuckie, always one to try and break the tension, coughed lightly. "So, Lil, I might take Melinda before you get too carried away..." he took a step to his left and 'acquired' the baby from Lil's arms, before turning back to face Phil. "So...what are you and Lor going to do this afternoon."

Phil looked quite plainly like he would rather discuss _anything_ else but , in his experience, that had never stopped them before. "I dunno. I thought we might just spend some time talking or something. Or go to the rec room and play cards."

"Take her to a movie," Lil suggested.

Her brother raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I'm sure that'll go well. Lucy, mind if I step out for the afternoon?"

"Some other week, maybe," she said. "But if you agree to play nice and have your tests without _moaning_ for a week...I may be able to let you have the rec-room – and the big TV – to yourselves for the afternoon."

Phil raised an eyebrow. "Really? This is within your power?"

"If you behave," Lucy suggested.

"Define 'behave'."

8 - * - * - 8

Lor was, to put it bluntly, a wreck.

She stood outside the door to Phil's room with a little knot of anxiety building in her stomach. In there somewhere was a boy who, just last week, deemed her worthy of kissing, who wanted to share something with her that no-one ever had before. They'd built a friendship, they'd built an attraction, and then last week they'd shared something...special.

And then they hadn't spoken to each other for a week.

Lor knew this was to be expected. He didn't have her phone number. Or e-mail address. Or instant messenger handle. Or – well, anything. And she didn't have any way to contact him. Well, actually, that wasn't entirely true – she had the number they could use to reach Tino, she supposed it was a simple matter to ask for Phil's room instead – but somehow it had seemed wrong. For her, this...whatever this was she had with Phil was something that she had on Saturdays, something that was part of this very specific part of her life and she felt that, maybe, if she pushed it into her school week – her reality – then something about it would fall apart, she would be pushing too hard, she would be sullying it.

Maybe that would change as they developed into whatever it was they were going to develop into. But while they were in this limbo between friends and something else, she felt that maybe it was best that she not push too hard, that she just let things happen as they happened.

Which was a pity, because all through her week, she kept finding things that she wished she could tell Phil about, things that she wanted to share with him, even just as her friend.

She sighed. All this desire to talk to him and yet here she was, standing _outside_ his room instead of going _into _it.

She pushed gently on the door and heard laughter from beyond, which she immediately identified as Dr. Carmichael. "Hardly what you'd call a 'date' movie," the doctor was saying.

"Not without its charms, though," Lil defended whatever film it was they were discussing. "But a bit of a downer on the whole."

"Never got the watching movies thing myself," Chuckie's voice interjected. "I mean, are you there to watch a movie or to be with each other?"

"It's a balancing act," Dr. Carmichael told them. "And if it's a really god-awful movie you can just make fun of whatever is happening on screen and get some laughs out of it together."

"Me, make fun of a movie? I think you must be thinking of someone else," Phil finally joined the conversation.

They were talking about Phil watching a movie with someone. Her.

For the second time in two weeks, she was eavesdropping on a conversation that Phil was having with his friends and/or family abouth her. She felt simultaneously relieved to discover that Phil felt willing to accept help on the subject of their developing relationship, and rotten for continually – albeit accidentally – listening in on his private conversations.

She pushed the door a little harder, knocking on it this time. "Uh...hi?"

The room quietened as every head in it turned to face her, except the baby that Lil held, who simply continued to slobber on the girl's offered finger.

Phil broke into a wide smile at the sight of her. "Hey," he said, pushing himself off the bed. "How're you?"

"I'm good, I'm good," she said. She felt an incomprehensible need to do something with her hands in that moment and smoothed an imaginary crease out of the stomach of her shirt. "You?"

"I'm also pretty alright." She noticed his hands hung limply at his sides and wondered briefly if that meant he wasn't as nervous as her, before trying to quiet her mind which she was quite aware was simply running on a paranoid overdrive. "Have you met -"

"She has," Lil cut him off. "A couple of weeks ago, we all ran into each other in the hall." She looked down at the baby in her arms. "This is Melinda," she told Lor, before lifting the baby to stare in her eyes. Melinda smiled gummily at Lil. "Say hello, slobberchops."

She turned the baby to face Lor who laughed quietly at the expression of wonder on the infant's face. Melinda cooed quietly before reaching out for Lor's hand, which she promptly tried to cram into her mouth. Lil pulled her away slightly, before Lor said, "No, it's okay. I've got, like, six younger brothers. I've been slobbered on plenty."

"Good to know," Phil said.

"Don't go getting any ideas," she said, levelling a finger at him, but smiling nonetheless.

Phil grinned back at her, and Lil rolled her eyes at the display. "Right, so Chuckie and I should be going."

"We should?" Chuckie asked, before a quick kick from Lil seemed to answer his question. "We should," he said. "I'll see you on Tuesday, Phil. Dr. Carmichael, always a pleasure."

"Wow, didn't take them long to get you well trained, did it?" Lucy observed. "See you later, Chuckie."

Lil leaned in a kissed her brother on the cheek, before hoisting the baby and walking toward the door. "See you later, Phil. Remember – clean socks."

Phil all but growled at that, Lor noticed. "_Thank_ you," he said, in a tone that made it clear he was anything but thankful. "Until next time, Lil."

She grinned sweetly, said goodbye to Lor, and departed.

"Next time you're flirting with Tommy, anyway," Phil muttered under his breath, before turning to Lor and smiling. "So, I've been stuck in this room for half a week and would very much like to go do something. You want to come...watch a movie? Or something?"

"Where?"

"Well...the rec room is comfortable," he suggested.

He said this with a certain air of rehearsal and she smiled at his slight nervousness, which only served to ease her own anxiety over the situation. "Sure," she said.

He kissed her, quickly, almost as if he was hoping she wouldn't notice, before turning to Lucy. "You mind if I escape for a little while?"

Lucy was looking at the two of them as if they were a bomb that might go off at any moment, but nodded. "Sure thing, Philly. You feel any problems, though -"

"And I'll come running," he promised, turning back to Lor and smiling, finding her still slightly dazed from the kiss but at least fully upright. "Shall we?"

8 – * - * - 8

"Sorry we don't have a huge selection of films," he said, sitting back on the couch next to her. "Lucy suggested _The Importance of Being Earnestly Vaccinated_ but I think she was joking."

"I would hope so," Lor agreed, leaning against the arm of the couch and wondering exactly where along it she was meant to sit. The opening credits to an older _Batman_ movie popped up on the screen. "This is fine," she told him. "I like movies with a bit of action in them."

"Good to hear."

Phil seemed to be sprawled, somewhat, along the middle of the couch, and she felt a strange urge to join him, relaxed and stretched out without regard for whether their bodies were touching or anything, but years of keeping her distance from people physically were making it hard for her to do so. So she sat tucked up against the arm, watching the movie.

"Are you okay?" Phil asked.

She turned to face him and found him looking up at her from his unusual position, half lying on the couch, his feet dangling over the other arm, his head on the cushion to her immediate right. He craned his neck back and looked at her upside down.

She nodded. "I'm fine."

"Good," he said, reaching up with a hand and grabbing hers. "You want anything to drink or anything?"

"No, I'm good," she said, looking at the spot where his thumb brushed over her own thumb's lowest joint.

"Okay."

She tried to focus on the film presented to her but it was one that she'd seen numerous times growing up and therefore was able to tune it partly out and focus on the thoughts running rampant through her mind. The thoughts about the physical contact she found herself in with Phil, his hand in hers, and when he released it she found herself laying it down on the top of his head, simply because it was the most comfortable place for it. She stroked her fingers back and forth silently, watching the film and trying not to watch his reaction. She could feel his hair underneath his bandanna and on a an impulse reached for the front of it and started peeling it back.

He pulled away sharply. "Please don't do that."

"Don't do what?" she asked, shocked at his sudden movement.

"Don't take my bandanna off. Please."

She looked at him puzzled. "Why?"

"Because I don't like it," he said, retreating slightly from her. "I wear it for a reason."

"What reason?" she asked, not wanting to push him too hard but wanting a reasonably sensible answer to what she felt was a reasonable question. "I'd kind of assumed it was because you didn't have any hair, but obviously you do, so..."

"At first, it was because I didn't have any hair," he admitted. "When they put me on a course of chemo it all...fell out. But now it's because of a different reason, and I don't like discussing it."

"I understand that," she told him. "Tell me why. Please."

Phil stared at her, and she held his gaze.

"It's private," he said.

"I know," she said. "Tell me."

He finally looked away, his eyes betraying him, and she thought for a moment that she might have pushed him too far, before he reached up and untied the bandanna from the back, pulling it off. He shook his hair out, running his fingers through it once to smooth it down, and looked her in the eye.

In the photographs she'd seen, his hair was the same brown as his sisters, unkempt and wavy. His hair now was much shorter than it was in any of the pictures she'd seen, and it looked less wavy as much as practically spiky, due to its abbreviated length.

And it was shot through with grey.

She raised an eyebrow and reached up to touch it, from which he flinched away. Tiring of this, she grabbed him by the arm and – gently, realising that she probably outweighed him by a bit – pulled him to her to kiss him.

She could feel the tension drain out of him as she did so, and she slowly pulled away from him, allowing him to pursue her slightly before reaching up and running her hand through his hair, this time without resistance.

"I don't care," she said.

"I do."

"Well, try to forget it," she suggested. "Even if just while I'm here, just...trust me."

He nodded. "I can do that. I think."

"You think too much," she said, leaning back into the couch to sit and watch the movie. He resumed his earlier position as well, only now his head lay in her lap and she found her hand drifting down to idly play with his hair, teasing the ends of it and massaging his scalp.

"I like your hair much better," he told her.

"Why?"

"Even when my hair was brown, it was just so...boring," he said. "Brown hair, brown eyes...if it wasn't for my quite unusual resemblance to Lil, I often think I must look like one of the most blatantly unremarkable people alive. At least your hair makes you look so...bright, and vibrant and...alive. Not to mention your eyes."

"Do go on," she prompted, waving her hand to keep the compliments coming.

He turned his head so he was no longer facing the television where he lay across her legs and was instead looking up at her face. "Well, there wasn't a lot to it. I just like your eyes. Green eyes. They're...pretty." He blushed, the blood rushing to his face a stark contrast against his usual alabaster white appearance. "I'm not very good at compliments."

"You're doing fine," she told him.

The movie now forgotten, she brushed his short hair back as he lay there, staring up at her with a crooked smile on his face.

"How was your week?" he asked.

"Do you really want to know?" In the time they'd known each other, she didn't think they'd ever discussed anything so mundane as what was actually happening in their lives.

"Yes, please."

She shrugged, thinking back over her week. "It was good. I went to school. I got in an argument with my psychology teacher."

"You're taking psychology?" He looked somewhat surprised.

"Yeah. I had a free elective and really, really couldn't pick from a bad lot so I just trailed Tish into it. It's not bad but definitely not something I think I'm going to rush to follow up on in college."

"What did you argue about?"

"Memory. What we could actually remember and what we just thought we could. I don't care what she says, I can remember Simon going through the glass door. I don't care how old I was."

Phil smiled. "I went through a glass door once."

"Really?"

"Yeah, stepped right through it. In my defence, it was dark, and the door next to it didn't have any glass in it. I just missed by one door."

"Still a pretty big lapse in concentration. At least Simon was pushed."

"Who's Simon, as a point of interest?"

"Big brother. Number...three. I think."

"You lose track of your brothers ages?"

"Hey, I've got _fourteen _of them. You would too."

"Lil would never let me forget that she came first."

"Yeah, twins are like that."

"You're not a twin, are you?"

"No, but amongst fourteen brothers, I think there are like...three sets?"

"Maybe you should carry around a family tree in your wallet if you need to work this hard to remember things."

"Hey, they're worse. I'm the only one any of them can be relied upon to always remember. Because I'm the girl."

"I would think it's just because you're very, very memorable. What else did you do this week?"

"Nothing, really," she said, being dragged back on track with this topic. "It was a quiet week. We went to school, I went to Tish's place to work on an assignment, we came here. That's pretty much the highlights."

He sighed. "I miss that."

"What?"

"The idea of a boring week. The very _idea_ of being able to go around to Tommy's place to work on a project or something fills me with a certain illicit thrill. Practically nothing changes in here. People come, they go. I have problems, I get better. It's all clockwork. It blends into a white, sterile blur."

She frowned, suddenly feeling terribly selfish for taking her freedom to be bored with everyday life for granted. "I'm sorry."

He seemed to come back to himself after his rant and stared up at her in surprise. "God, don't be. I got a bit carried away with feeling sorry for myself there for a minute. Didn't mean to take it out on you."

"Is something wrong?" She kicked herself at the ridiculousness of that question. "Beyond the obvious, I mean."

He grinned at that slightly, but shook his head. "No. I mean...well, yes, but no."

"Okay, do you want to settle on something resembling an answer there?"

"Eh...it's nothing," he said, rather than settling on an answer he settled back into her lap, and she allowed him to do so, deciding that pressing him into an answer on the question was likely to be more problematic than otherwise. They watched the movie in silence, laughing at the occasional funny line but otherwise just sitting there.

Lor found it oddly easy, not feeling the need to say anything to the boy draped across her, just allowing him to draw comfort from her presence, and she took the same in return.

The movie came to its inevitable conclusion, which she would have seen coming a mile off even if she hadn't seen it a half-dozen times before, and she watched as Phil idly picked up the remote off the table in front of them, and begin flicking through channels idly. He settled on a music channel, playing some reasonably mellow video, but kept toying with the remote in his hand as again, he rolled over to look up at her.

"A girl died here this week," he said.

Lor didn't say anything. She had no idea what she should – or even could – say.

"Her name was Anna," he said, "and she had AIDS. It was inevitable, and she knew it. We all knew it."

"Were you close?" Lor asked.

"No, we didn't get on all that well," he said. "Differences of taste, I guess. We did have one 'group therapy' session that everyone on the ward who was concious had to attend, and I really didn't want to be there, and she spent the whole thing waffling stuff about the fragility of life and crap like that. Like she had some really deep insight on the mysteries of death. Who knows, maybe she did. She had this list of things she wanted to do before she died. It was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard."

"Really?" Lor asked, not quite sure where this was headed, but quite certain that she didn't agree with Phil's observation on the list. "I think it sounds kind of sensible."

"Not hers. It was full of stupid, cliched crap. She wanted to swim with the dolphins. She wanted to see the Earth from space. She wanted to write a novel. She wanted to do all this crap that anyone who lived a normal, healthy, happy life would probably never get around to. But that was her dream. And I guess I wonder – when she was dying, was she lying there disappointed with herself for never achieving _any_ of those things? For all her pontificating about death, about how she was ready for it and knew it was coming, she'd set herself these impossible standards to live up to. I think maybe she was afraid. She was saying she couldn't die. Because she hadn't seen the Earth from space."

Lor felt a slight tickle of moisture against her fingers, but resisted the temptation to brush it away. Something just told her it was the wrong thing to do in this moment, to draw attention to the fact that Phil had cried over this. So she simply sat there, silent, until she felt him let out a single, shuddering breath.

"What would be on your list, then?"

"What?" Phil's voice was barely a whisper.

"What would be on your list. If not seeing the Earth from space, what would be on your list of things to do?"

He lay there it continuing silence for a moment, before taking a deep breath and shrugging. "I don't know."

"I'd like to learn to dance," she said. "I can't, and it annoys me. It's something I'd like to conquer someday."

Phil smiled up at her. "I could see you out on the dance floor. There'd be carnage."

She slapped him lightly on the head. "Come on, then."

He didn't stop smiling, but reached up and tugged at her hair slightly, not so much as to hurt but more to find a new point of contact. "I'd like to cook Thanksgiving dinner for everyone."

"Why that?"

"Because I think it's one of the few things I'm actually exceptionally good at and I want the chance to actually share that with people whom I love and care about." His hand drifted from her hair and his fingertips swiped across her cheek. "I'd like to beat Chuckie at chess. We've played each other _hundreds_ of times and I've never won once."

"Lofty ambition."

"I think so," he said. "I'd like to have sex."

Lor choked a little on some air in her throat. "I beg your pardon?"

"Before I die," he clarified. "I'd like to have sex before I die. I don't think I want to die without experiencing it."

"Pretty blunt, aren't you?"

"Well, you asked," he said. "I don't know if I'm really missing anything or the like but I'd love to know one way or another. It's this basic human instinctual need for a reason, after all. People our age just tend to trivialise it, that's all."

She shrugged. She supposed she had a point, but it was not one she had often thought of. Her luck with men had not exactly been conducive to wondering what her first time might be like.

But, she thought, looking down at Phil's face, that might be changing.

"I'd like to see Nick Cave in concert," he said, "which means I've got to last at least until my 18th birthday so I can get into a venue."

"See, setting manageable goals," she commended him. "I think all those are doable. Some you may need help with."

"You're going to teach me how to beat Chuckie at chess?"

She laughed and finally leant down to kiss him again. The hand that had been stroking her cheek and playing with her hair became an arm that looped around her neck, pulling her closer. The awkward angle didn't bother her as much as she thought it would, but she still felt the need to fix it, because in this position it would be over all too soon if only because of all the blood trying to rush to her head.

He seemed to silently concur with this assessment, pulling himself up off the couch and into a full embrace with her. Last week their kissing had been a sudden, sharp moment between the two of them – this was not like that at all. This was a slow, deliberate moment – something the two of them were eager to share and in no rush about. She'd heard all about kissing from Tish, who had been eager to share when she and Tino had gotten together and did so with Lor, the closest thing she had to a girlfriend – but, Lor decided, it was nothing on actually finally doing it yourself.

She had always thought her mind would go blank at a moment like this, but it was in fact racing a million miles a minute, trying to anticipate what to do next so as not to disappoint Phil, if indeed that was even a possibility, trying to anticipate what he would do next, trying to sort out one sensation from another, what felt right and what felt wrong, if anything felt wrong, where this was going and where it might go and where she wanted it to go.

In the end she just surrendered to the stream of conciousness, finding that if she didn't concentrate too hard on any of it it all came pretty easily. Her mind knew what her body wanted and she certainly didn't hear Phil complaining.

She felt fingertips toying with the hem at the back of her shirt and she let Phil pull his lips away from hers with only a slight pursuit. "I didn't tell you all that to get you to...do anything, you know."

"I know," she said. "Sit there for a minute."

She rose from the couch and could feel his eyes on her every step of the way to the door, which she poked her head out of to check for people occupying the corridor outside. Satisfied that there was no-one there, she pulled herself back in and closed the door behind her. She turned to face Phil on the couch, leaning against the door. He raised an eyebrow at her but didn't comment.

Visiting hours were over in twenty minutes, she knew, and she knew therefore if anything was going to happen she'd have to get over these nerves and get on with it. She sauntered over to the couch, as much as she knew how to saunter, trying to keep her eyes on his, gratified to sense something she hoped was desire there. He looked like he was about to rise up off the couch, but she pressed him back down and followed herself, half-sitting, half-laying on the couch with him, her back pressed to his front.

"What are we doing?" he asked, wrapping his hands around her shoulders and kissing her on the back of the neck. He didn't sound puzzled or peeved, just curious.

"Just going with it," she suggested, incredibly glad that he couldn't see her face in this position – she was quite sure that she was turning all kinds of shades of pink and purple with embarrassment and anticipation. "...put your arms around me?"

His hands slid down the length of her sides, before reaching around and clasping together in front of her waist. "Like this?" he asked, clutching her against his body.

She felt herself leaning back into him more. "Yeah, like that." She found herself needing her brain to remind her to breathe, all but trying to keep herself and her body under control.

Without further prompting, his fingers began tracing the contours of her abdomen and stomach. He wasn't rushing, she knew. He was learning, paying attention. It was as if he was trying to make some kind of map of her, agonisingly slowly and only managing to build her anticipation.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Fine," she all-but squeaked. "I'm okay."

"Good," he said. His fingers slipped under her shirt, not travelling beyond any boundaries, just softly brushing against the skin of her stomach. She felt her body jerk convulsively and tried very hard not to allow herself to laugh. Nothing, she suspected, would kill the moment quite so effectively as her laughing in the middle of it.

Then his fingers shifted a little and she felt her eyes roll into the back of her head. Suddenly it wasn't at all funny.

Now her mind seemed to empty of all other thought that had been filling it. There was a hospital around them but all she was willing to know about in that moment was the fact that there were lips on her shoulder and fingers trailing up her stomach and along her ribcage, teasing ever-so-slightly at the hem of her bra. She felt unable to take anything other than deep, long breaths for fear of passing out, which only served to enhance the sensation as her skin pushed against Phil's fingers.

"Relax," his voice was in her ear, another sensation for her increasingly overwhelmed body to keep track of. "Relax."

"I'm relaxed," she said. "If I was any more relaxed you could use me for a cushion."

"You're tense," he corrected her, fingers walking up across the material of her bra and caressing lightly, almost strumming. "You'd be a very uncomfortable cushion."

"Shows what you know," she said, gasping slightly as a finger brushed over her nipple. She resisted the urge to jump – he was right, she was tensed up all over and struggling not to leap a foot in the air. But she wanted to just let this happen, to savour this while it lasted, this increasingly intimate moment between them.

She leant her head back on his shoulder and sought out his lips blindly, but he obliged and kissed her. She was unable to tell how long they stayed like that, laid against each other, bodies and lips and everything, it seemed, touching – touching was a very big thing for her in this moment.

Until her phone beeped.

They didn't break apart, startled. He didn't tug his hand free or pull his lips from hers and she didn't seem in any rush to grab her phone. But they both knew what it meant. She didn't have to check the message. He didn't have to ask.

When they finally broke apart of their own accord, she traced a finger down from his forehead to his chin. "I've got to go."

"I know," he said. "Maybe a good thing."

"Really?"

"No." He kissed her on the forehead, unwilling to get caught up in what was going on again just to have to stop straight away. His hands slid back down her torso and held her waist, thumbs playing lightly over the skin, as she turned to face him. "I am sorry if we got a bit...carried away, there. I didn't mean to...I mean, we're just..."

She cut him off. "Don't be sorry. Maybe it got a bit...intense, but don't be sorry. Please."

"Okay." He let out a breath even he didn't seem to realise he was holding and finally released her from his grip. She pulled herself up and reached out to haul him off the couch as well. "Thanks. I think...I think that I can't quite do this...like this any more."

She was somewhat taken aback, having felt things were, on the whole, going pretty well. "What do you mean?"

"This...you being here on Saturday thing. The idea that the only way I can contact you is to wait until you arrive. That if I don't see you for whatever reason I don't have any other way to talk to you. Not that I'll call you or e-mail you or whatever in the middle of the week. I just...I would like to know that I could."

The idea of bringing Phil into her world hung over her head once again, but somehow, now, it didn't seem quite so terrifying. "Have you got a pen?"

8 - * - * - 8

_Author's Note: _This chapter was something a little different, obviously. Just wanting to let you know that no, this fic hasn't been abandoned, it's still ticking away. I'm just finding inspiration for so many stories these days that it's hard to give all of them equal time.

I went back and forth on this chapter a bit but I wanted to make sure that this relationship remained a realistic look at a teenage relationship in unusual circumstances, which is why it went in the direction it did. The growing closeness between the lead characters is an important element to the story.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks, as ever, to Lord Malachite, who went through this plot with me carefully as I worked it up, and saved me from my more notable mistakes.

Reviews are, as ever, appreciated.


	7. Sorrow's Child

**The Hospital Story**

Acepilot

8 - * - * - 8

Chapter 7: Sorrow's Child

8 - * - * - 8

Lor bit back laughter at the sight of Carver's attempts to justify why, exactly, he was caught by the principal in the girl's bathroom and wearing a three-cornered hat. Everybody, to put it generously, appeared doubtful at his excuse.

"Well, I don't have to hang around with you people who have such little faith in me," he protested. "I'm going for a smoke. Anyone coming for some fresh air?"

"Nah," Lor said. "But thanks."

Carver looked momentarily confused at this sudden change to their established pattern, but shrugged and headed out of the room regardless.

Tino raised an eyebrow. "Not going to see Phil this week?"

Lor felt suddenly puzzled. "Sorry, are you _encouraging_ me to spend less time with you? You know that _you're_ the one I actually come here every week to visit?"

Tino snorted. "Yeah, I know. But still, don't kid yourself that I don't know you're not just going out for fresh air. You were gone for more than two hours last week."

Lor felt her face heating up. "Tino..."

The blonde boy shrugged. "Look, Lor, to be honest I'm happy you met someone. And it's not like we've got earth shattering amounts of things to talk about. Don't get me wrong, I am always happy to see you...but don't feel the need to hang around longer than usual just because you were a little preoccupied last week. Really."

Lor looked doubtful. "Are you sure this doesn't make me a horrible friend?" 

"Maybe if I was dying," Tino said. "As it is it just means you have less opportunity to steal my pudding cup."

"Hey, that was totally Carver," Lor corrected him. She leant over and kissed him on the cheek, in a moment that surprised both of them. "You're a good friend. Even when you never get out of bed."

"I try," Tino said. "Tell Phil to drop by sometime. I'm awake a lot more now."

"Fair enough. I'll see you guys soon."

As they watched her leave, Tish turned to her boyfriend. "That was very sweet of you."

Tino simply shrugged. "Well, it gives us some time alone together. And you know what that means."

Tish rolled her eyes. "No, what?"

"That you can help me with this math assignment," Tino told her, incredulous that she hadn't already worked it out. "I mean, seriously, what else would two young teenagers do in an unoccupied room with a bed in it?"

8 - * - * - 8

Lor wondered if she would ever approach Phil's room and find it silent, but she hazarded probably not. Phil always seemed to be entertaining some visitor or another, and this week was no different.

Well, mostly.

She could hear Phil talking, but there was no discernible response coming from whoever it was he was talking to, just sounds. She quickly narrowed down the suspects.

"You know you're getting way too big too fast," Phil's voice crept through the door, as she leant on the wall outside, unwilling and unable to interrupt this moment between the two in the room. "I think they're feeding you way too much. You're going to be bigger than me in no time at all. Of course, that's hardly a great achievement these days. You need to do something about that hair, though. You're not getting enough protein, are you? I don't get much either and look what's happened to me. But it's okay. Has anyone shown you baby photos of Chuckie yet? You look just like him. But with bigger eyes."

Lor wondered quite when she had become so adept at eavesdropping, and why she found herself constantly doing it outside Phil DeVille's hospital room. She sighed and pushed the door open quietly, slipping inside and trying not to disturb Phil.

He was sat on the edge of the bed, holding Melinda so she stood on his lap, facing him. The baby was gurgling happily at Phil's discussion with her, reaching out occasionally to bat him on the nose. Phil was wearing a gown this week, a sign, she'd learned, that all had not been well the night before.

She padded quietly across the room, making just enough noise so that Phil knew someone was there but not so much as to break his concentration on the baby, whom he continued talking to. "I hope they've been keeping up with your musical education. You realise that if they turn Lil loose on you you'll end up listening to Emica, and we just can't have that."

Lor knelt down on the bed behind Phil, watching Melinda over his shoulder. The infant looked up at her with an interested expression on her face – more, she imagined, as a change from looking at Phil constantly – before turning her attention back to the more familiar face.

"I'll get you a copy of _Let Love In _for your first birthday, I promise, if you ignore everything Lil shows you."

Lor finally couldn't resist interjecting. "Trying to corrupt her young?" 

"That's one point of view," Phil agreed, turning his head slightly so that he could see her over his shoulder. "Hi," he said, leaning back slightly. Without really thinking about it, Lor lent forward and pressed her lips to his, a quick and light touch of lips to lips, before she pulled back, slightly startled by her own movements and the ease with which they had come to her. That was a move that Tino and Tish would share. A familiar peck between a long-standing couple. But it was not something she and Phil would do.

She would have thought.

"So," she said, deciding to try and salvage the situation and play it for normality, "it seems like every week I come here there's a different woman in your life."

"Does that include Tommy?" he asked, turning fully on the bed so he was lying on it more-or-less properly, propped up against the wall and with the baby on his lap.

"Ha ha," she said.

"Well, I guess you two haven't been formally introduced," he said. "This is my little sister, Melinda. Melinda, you remember Lor." He looked up at Lor. "Do you want to hold her?"

Lor shrugged. "Sure."

"You know how?" he asked.

"I've got six younger brothers, I've held babies," she assured him, lifting the tiny girl carefully from Phil's arms. "She's very cute," she told him.

"Don't tell me that you're going to go all mushy over her," he groaned.

"Oh, like you don't," Lor stuck her tongue out at him. "I saw you there when I came in."

"That was a completely level bonding moment between brother and sister. There was nothing mushy about it at all. And if you tell anyone then I'll have to do something drastic."

"I'm quite intrigued by that threat," she told him, but before they could really launch into the question of what exactly all that meant, she decided to reign the conversation back on course. "So, how old is she?"

"Just over...well, five months, I guess," Phil said. "She was born a month before I came in here for this stay."

Deciding that the safer course of discussion was to stick with his sister, Lor dropped the 'this stay' reference where it lay. "Bit of a shock for your parents? I take it there's no-one between you and her."

"A shock is one way of putting it," he agreed. "It was a bit of a comedy of errors all around. But hey, there you are. A shock and an accident but definitely well-loved and beautiful."

Lor watched Phil's face as he teased his little sister, tickling her under the chin and pulling his fingers continually just out of reach as she chased after them. "You sound...never mind."

He looked up at her. "I sound what?"

"It's nothing," she insisted.

"No, seriously," he said. "Tell me, please."

She shrugged and picked Melinda up off her lap, turning the baby to face her, watching her make faces rather than make eye contact with Phil while she said this. "You sound kind of doubtful. When you say she was a shock and an accident."

Phil raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?"

"Well...yeah."

Phil lay down more fully on the bed, resting a hand on her leg and staring at the ceiling. Lor didn't look at the hand on her leg but was extremely concious that it was there, and eventually she gave into the temptation and lay down on the bed next to Phil. The two of them barely fit on the hospital cot and each had to dangle a leg off their opposite sides, but it seemed to work. They didn't pull closer together but she felt his head touch against hers.

"I think Mom had sixteen years to perfect not getting pregnant and she didn't screw it up once," Phil observed at last, after what had seemed like the longest period of silence Lor had gone through in her life. "A month after I was out from surgery suddenly there's pregnancy tests in the trash and nine months later there's Melinda, this tiny redheaded slice of life."

Lor decided not to comment. She got the feeling it really wasn't the moment.

"It makes me feel bad to think it," Phil admitted, rolling over to lie on his side, not letting go of his grip on Lor's leg, allowing him to reach his other hand over and take his sister's hand in between his finger and thumb. "But...sometimes I wonder if I'd died in surgery, if I'd not gotten this far...if they'd have named her Phillipa or something instead. Like she might be my...replacement, or something." His face immediately tuned to an expression of distaste, but he didn't pull away as the little girl in Lor's lap squeezed his finger tightly. "I love spending time with her...but at the same time I worry that it's for the wrong reasons, that I want to see her because I'm worried she'll forget me."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Lor said. "You seem to really care about her."

"She's my little sister," he said. "Of course I do." He sighed as Melinda tried to pull his finger into her mouth. He let her, smiling at the little girl's expression. "Is this the point where I'm supposed to say something really corny like 'you look really good with a baby' or something?"

"I think that comes later. Much, much later."

Phil grinned. "Good. Because you look ever so awkward with a baby, if I'm honest."

"I'm not used to holding baby girls," she told him.

"They're really not that different."

"I'll take your word for it."

Phil moved his head slightly so he could kiss her again – a lazy, languid kiss that Lor allowed herself to sink into slightly, though not entirely as she tried to keep sufficient control of her faculties to remember that she was holding a baby, who was watching the two of them with a puzzled expression on her face, though Lor may have been projecting that.

"Hi," she said, when they finally broke apart, unable to come up with anything else.

"Hi," he returned. "We're getting kind of good at that."

"No complaints here," she agreed.

"What is the happiest memory you have in your life?"

Lor backtracked a moment, trying to track down where the subject had changed and realised that it had, in fact, not changed at all, Phil was in fact changing it now. "I don't know. I've never thought about it. What brought this on?"

Phil shrugged. "I talk. A lot. Perhaps too much. With you, I can't help it. I just kind of spout whatever is on my mind, endlessly, without thinking, because with you I can. I don't know why. It's not that I trust you more than anyone else or anything but...with everyone else, I feel like I have to be so guarded, because they're all afraid for me...of me, almost. But you're different. You're this separate part of my life and I can talk to you and it's free and I can say what I think and feel and know that you won't judge me or fear me or whatever. But I don't want you to think that I don't want to know about you, and your life, and your hopes and things. I really do. I just talk so much I sometimes worry that you think I'm not interested."

She shook her head. "I never thought that."

"Good."

"But you're wrong."

Phil paused. "About what?"

She sighed. "I spent a big chunk of last week thinking about you. My not-boyfriend lying in a hospital with whom I shared something incredible – or something very new and exciting to me, anyway – and I worry about you. Maybe not in the same way that your family does or anything, but...despite what I said to you a few weeks ago, that hasn't stopped this from being something incredibly scary."

"Really."

"But I think it's worth it."

Phil looked her in the eye, seeming to think about what she had said, before leaning across and kissing her again, just quickly.

But not quickly enough, as the door to the room opened with a creak and the sound of, "Whoa, not in front of innocent eyes."

Phil groaned and rolled his head to bury it in a pillow while Lor shot upright, realising with a start that she had just been caught lying on a bed with a boy and kissing him, and that this could go all kinds of wrong for her.

Standing in the doorway was a tall woman with short-cut brown-and-grey hair and a mischievous grin on her face. Lor couldn't place the face for a moment but when she did she groaned with a horrifying realisation that this was Phil's mother.

"Oh no," she said, looking down to try and avoid the gaze of everyone else in the room, but that just left her staring into Melinda's eyes, and she seemed to find this all very amusing judging by the silly little laugh she gave off.

"But oh, yes," the older woman said. "I don't think we've actually been introduced."

"No, you haven't..." Phil muttered, pulling himself up off the bed. Lor scrambled up herself, albeit somewhat belatedly, and held the baby as an almost unconscious defence mechanism, some ancient, instinctive part of her brain telling her that mothers aren't likely to harm someone holding their young.

"Mom," Phil said, standing between the two of them and appropriating Melinda from Lor, who whimpered near-silently at the loss of her human shield, "this is Lor McQuarrie. Lor, my mother, Betty Finster."

"Ah, so this is Lor. Good thing too, or else I would have been a bit worried about your reputation there, Philly." Betty thrust a hand out to Lor, which she took before getting pulled into an honestly-bruising handshake.

Phil's eyes narrowed. "Alright, who told you? Was it Chuckie or Lil?"

"Chuckie and Lil knew about this before I did?" Betty asked, amused.

Phil's jaw dropped. "Lucy! That treacherous little -" he cut himself off and started taking deep, steady breaths. "I can't believe it."

"Hey, I have to have more effective ways of keeping an eye on you than Melinda here," his mother told him, taking her daughter from his arms in turn. "Chuckie and Lil give you a hard time, sure, but they're way too loyal to you to be used as surveillance."

"I'll never doubt them again," Phil swore. "Wasn't Chaz with you?"

"Yeah, he's just in the bathroom, he'll be back to say goodbye in a moment. You think you can keep your hands off your lady friend that long?"

Phil reached over and swept Lor into a passionate embrace, dipping her low. She could feel his muscles straining to hold her up and she subtly tried to take his weight and hold him up in turn. Then he leant down and kissed her and it became a slightly more difficult proposition.

"Oh, my."

The voice sounded a lot like Chuckie and when Lor looked up she was slightly surprised to see an older gentleman with the same red hair as Phil's brother – albeit a great deal less of it – and a shocked expression on his face.

Lor pulled quickly away from Phil and stood there next to him under the gaze of his parents, feeling sure that she was, even as she just stood there, turning such a bright red she'd glow.

"Lor," Phil said, without missing a beat, "this is Chaz, my stepfather. Chaz, this is Lor."

"Nice to meet you," Lor mumbled under her breath.

"The pleasure is all mine," Chaz assured her, stepping closer to his wife. "All set?"

"Yeah," Betty said, casting an eye over the two teenagers standing opposite her and hoisting Melinda up into a more comfortable position for all concerned. "Glad to meet you at last, Lor. I like to keep up with Philly's life, so I hope we can drag you around for dinner sometime."

Phil rolled his eyes. "Mom, are you quite through?"

"I'm just getting started," she assured him, stepping across the gap between the two generations and kissing him on the cheek. "You be good and call me if you need anything, you hear?"

"I hear you the same as I hear you every other day," Phil told her. "You know I will."

"Well, I'm just looking out for you," Betty said.

Phil kissed his baby sister on the forehead and gave Chaz a quick hug. "I know, I know," he said. "I'm fine. Now go and enjoy this lovely weekend before it's all gone."

Betty looked doubtful but nodded. "I love you, Phil."

"I love you too, Mom."

Betty nodded to Lor. "Nice to meet you, Lor."

"You too, Mrs. Finster, Mr. Finster," she said, turning to each of them in turn.

"Do remember that Lucy will be around in a little while," Betty said as they were leaving, "and she does _report_ back to me."

"Which just means I've got to figure out what to bribe _her_ with," Phil countered. "See you on Monday, Mom."

And then they were gone, and Phil and Lor found themselves alone.

All Lor's breath left her in a relieved rush, a weight lifting straight off her shoulders that she hadn't entirely realised she was carrying with her. "Well, that was...bracing."

"She's more likely to tease me than think you're doing anything inappropriate," Phil assured her.

"Yeah, but still...not while I'm holding her five month old daughter."

"No, you have a point there," Phil conceded.

Before laughing.

Lor watched as Phil slowly but surely collapsed into fits of giggles and laughs, at first just chuckling but then all but howling in mirth, and after a few moments, once the shock of being caught by first his mother in a compromising position and then his stepfather in an even more ridiculous pose had worn off, she found herself laughing as well, until they were both rolling around on the floor, tears of mirth rolling down their cheeks.

When they finally recovered, Phil rolled over to her on the ground and kissed her on the cheek before hauling himself to his feet. "So, you finally met my parents."

She clambered up herself and staggered over to the armchair by the bed, dropping back down into it and wiping quickly at her eyes. "Yes, I did. So Chuckie is your stepbrother, then?"

Phil nodded. "Mom and Chaz got married...oh, two years ago? But I've known Chuckie all my life. Since we were toddlers, pretty much. It was just an added dimension to our friendship when our parents got married. Albeit one with a few kinks involved."

"Kinks?"

"We had to share a room for a little while," Phil told her. "Big, big mistake."

"So, you and Lil are twins – and DeVilles?"

"Our dad," he said, pointing vaguely to the table with the photos on it, and specifically, Lor guessed, to the one with Phil and the pointy-nosed grey-haired man. "I still see him plenty. He even comes to visit with Mom sometimes. Though I wish he wouldn't."

"Why?"

Phil shrugged. "Oh, nothing major I guess. It's just that every now and then Mom and Lil will come without Chaz, Chuckie and Melinda, and Dad will show up, and we'll sit there as the four of us and...I don't know. Pretend we're still a real family? It's all bullshit, really, and uncomfortable. Mom and Dad don't talk to each other so they don't talk much at all, so usually I just sit there in an awkward silence and kick Lil's ass at Yahtzee. Well as silently as you can kick anyone's ass at Yahtzee."

"You play Yahtzee?"

"A master of the art."

"I never got the hang of it," Lor admitted, "I always seem to hold the wrong dice. But Tino and Carver are freaks for it. Tish and I used to think they'd rigged the dice so we swapped them all out but they still scored something ridiculous."

"Sounds like a challenge."

"Tino, by the way, says you should drop by sometime, that he's conscious a lot more these days and wouldn't mind meeting you properly."

Phil raised an eyebrow. "Well, if he can play a good game, I might just have to take him up on that."

"You should," Lor agreed. "So, how much longer _do _we have before Lucy comes by to check on you?"

"Why?" Phil asked, a sly grin on his face. "What did you have in mind?"

Lor smiled back at him. "You have a dirty mind, Phil."

"You bring out the best in me."

8 - * - * - 8

"He-hem."

Lor rolled her eyes. "What is it with people interrupting us this afternoon?"

"They just have a knack for it, I guess," Phil said, looking up from the scorepad to look at Lucy in the doorway. "Can we help you, Doctor?"

Lucy looked over the tableau presented to her with a raised eyebrow. "Am I seriously expected to believe that the two of you, left with this room for the afternoon, have been sitting here playing Yahtzee for the entire time?"

"I don't know about _seriously_ believing it," Phil told her. "But you could show a little faith."

"I'll keep that in mind," Lucy told them. "Sorry to interrupt your perfectly innocent game, but Lor – I need to borrow Philly here for the time being."

"That's okay," Lor said, rising from the table. "Tish and Carver will probably want us to be heading home soon, anyway."

"Same time, same place, next week?" Phil asked.

"Wouldn't miss it," Lor agreed, leaning down to kiss him on the forehead. "See you later."

"Bye."

And then she was gone, sweeping out of the room in a flurry of blonde hair.

Phil watched her go for a moment before turning to Lucy. "Alright, Doc. Let's have it."

"You two are getting pretty serious," Lucy noted, walking over to the bed and pulling Phil's chart out of the well at the foot.

"I wouldn't say serious," he said. "I mean, we're getting kind of close, sure, but we're not...dating, or anything."

Lucy looked unsurprised at this. "You and your semantics. Do you see her regularly?"

"Yes," Phil said, slowly, as though not quite sure where she was going with this.

"Do you kiss her without thinking about it? Just as a matter of course?"

"...I guess so."

"You're dating."

"We're not."

Lucy shook her head slowly. "Suit yourself."

8 - * - * - 8

It was well past bedtime for Tino, and he found himself unable to sleep. As annoying as this was, it was also surprisingly pleasant – he'd spent months with little desire to do anything _but_ sleep, and so finding himself suffering from insomnia was actually an oddly nice change.

That said, it wouldn't fly with the nurses, who were quite insistent that the patients on their ward sleep in the night time.

He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, and wishing he could find the energy to get out of bed, go for a walk, really tire himself out. But physical exertion was out of the question, so he just lay there until he heard somebody clear their throat from his doorway.

"I'm trying, really," he called out.

"Whatever you say."

He popped his head up. It hadn't been the voice of Nurse Kelly, as he'd been expecting, but was in fact a voice belonging to a young male. Standing before him was a young man dressed in a hospital nightgown, a bandage wrapped around his lower left arm and an IV drip coming out of his right. His hair was shot through with grey and he was leaning on the doorway but though he looked tired he seemed happy enough.

"Phil DeVille, right?" he said.

"At your service," the other man bowed to him, holding himself up on his drip stand. "And you would be Tino Tonitini."

"The one and only," he confirmed. "So, you're Lor's new friend."

"I like to think so. And you're one of her older ones."

"For most of my life." Tino looked the newcomer up and down. "I understand the two of you are getting kind of close."

Phil shrugged. "Well, close is such a vague term."

Tino nodded. "I get that. And I'm happy for you, really. But just so long as you understand – and, I know I'm lying in a bed half-paralysed most of the time, so I'm going to have to ask you to take me a bit more seriously that I deserve on this one – that if you hurt her, I'm going to make life _very_ uncomfortable for you."

If Phil was amused at the threats coming from the boy in the bed, he didn't show it. "I think that sounds fair enough," he agreed.

"Good."

Phil stepped further into the room, pulling the door shut behind him and bringing his hands out in front of him, revealing a small, red plastic cup and a pad in his left hand. "Well, now that we've got the pleasantries and threats to each others lives out of the way, the real reason I'm here is that mine and Lor's game of Yahtzee got interrupted this afternoon, and I'm hankering to finish it. And I understand you play a pretty mean game."

Tino smiled. "You understand right indeed," he said. "Though if I know Lor's play style, I'm afraid I won't have been left with much."

"Yeah, but just think about how you'll be able to brag about this comeback if you pull it off."

8 - * - * - 8

_Author's Note: Another chapter down. Hope everyone who is reading this is enjoying it. Thank you, to Acosta, for your insightful and interesting reviews. I'm still going with this story and I'm really enjoying doing so - exploring these characters who i've come to know so well in this different light, this different situation has been very engaging._

_Thanks for reading. Reviews are always appreciated._


	8. Far From Me

**The Hospital Story**

Acepilot

8 - * - * - 8

**Chapter 8: Far From Me**

8 - * - * - 8

"You're in a funny mood this week," Carver commented.

Lor gave him a tired glare from over the top of her sunglasses and didn't otherwise comment.

Tish thankfully didn't turn from the road to look at them, but simply ordered, "Don't start an argument. Please. I'm begging you."

"I'm not starting an argument," Carver insisted. "I'm just curious as to what has our dear Lor here in such an...odd mood."

Tish was, honestly, burning with curiosity as to the answer to that question herself, but knew better than to ask in this of all situations. She would ask once they arrived at the hospital, not in the car where Lor felt trapped into conversation.

"Well, it's her right to be odd," Tish pointed out, "like it's your right to wear that outfit."

"What's wrong with my outfit?" Carver asked, looking down at himself. "I'm stylish!"

"Alright, sure, we'll run with that," Tish agreed.

"I'll have you know that this is the absolute height of fashion," Carver offered in his defence. "They're all wearing it in LA."

"We're actually not that far from LA, Tish. We could go and see if everyone is wearing that. And if they are we can laugh at them," Lor suggested.

Relieved that she'd successfully redirected the conversation, Tish allowed it now to degenerate into an argument between Lor and Carver about fashion trends and just how ridiculous they found each other's outfits. This was safe territory, stuff they'd been over a million times, and without the potential to be emotionally damaging to either party. Because as much as Carver might moan about how the others simply didn't understand the cutting edge, Tish lived in the hope that he wasn't really _that _fragile about it.

8 - * - * - 8

Tish saw her opportunity as they stepped into the lobby, where an out of order sign across the vending machine caught her eye. "Oh, shoot, and I wanted a bottle of water. Lor, come with me to the cafe?"

Lor raised an eyebrow. "There's coolers full of free water all over the hospital."

"Yes, but they taste funny," Tish said.

"Weren't you the one telling me how all bottled water is a rip-"

"Come on," Tish said, grabbing her friend by the wrist. "Carver, go on up and we'll meet you there."

Carver watched the girls go, looking like he'd desperately like to say something but being unable to find the right words.

When they finally reached the cafe, Tish dropped the premise entirely. "Alright, what is it?"

"What's what?" Lor asked.

"Carver was right back in the car. You're in a strange mood. What's brought this on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lor said, stepping back onto the defensive.

"Come on, Lor, we've known each other too long and too well for me to fall for this," Tish said. "Is everything alright? Is somebody at school bothering you? Is something up between you and Phil?"

Lor growled. "Tish."

Tish decided she'd hit a nerve. "Lor..."

Lor looked agonised, but finally relented. "Alright – but this goes no further."

Tish nodded "Of course."

Lor sighed. "You know that guy Trevor, on the track team?"

Tish nodded. "Vaguely. Your long-distance running buddy."

"Yeah," Lor nodded. "We were at training yesterday, and we were talking. You know, how you...like, talk to people."

"I'm familiar with the concept, yes."

"Well, we were _just_ talking. And we were talking about school, and then we were talking about how it's the Valentines dance next Friday, and then we were talking about the weather, and then he asked me to go to the dance and I said I'd get back to him and then said I was going to train by going for a jog home and then I jogged home and I haven't said no. I haven't said yes. But I haven't said no."

Tish's jaw dropped. "He asked you to the dance?"

"I was kind of hoping you'd focus on the fact that we talked about the weather."

"And you said...nothing."

"What, about the weather? No, I said it looked like rain."

"Lor!"

"Alright, alright! I said nothing. Nothing whatsoever. I just didn't answer him and I ran away. But it was at least contextually appropriate so I didn't look like a _complete_ wuss."

"What are you going to do?"

Lor hung her head in her hands. "Have you got any idea how hard I'm trying to _not _work out the answer to that question?"

"You can't just avoid the issue, Lor. Trevor really asked you to the Valentine's Dance? You've got to tell him _something_."

"Why, though? I mean...I wasn't going to go. I didn't think anyone was likely to ask me. I mean...it's not like Phil and I are going out anywhere in a hurry."

Tish raised an eyebrow. She'd wondered when exactly Phil was going to come into this conversation. "Alright, so the question is: are you dating Phil? Are you allowed to go out with somebody else?"

Lor slapped the wall she was leaning on, quite hard, and Tish was momentarily worried that she'd have hurt her hand. "I don't know, alright? It's not like I've usually got boys falling over to go out with me, you know? The idea that there might be two people interested in me at the same time was not something that had really ever occurred to me before."

"Well, maybe you need to think about it, then," Tish suggested, though she was in a state of advanced disbelief herself. "What does your gut tell you?"

Lor made a face. "My gut says that thinking about this is a big mistake after a meal." She sighed, slumping down the wall to sit on the floor. "I don't know. It's not like Phil and I are going to be going out dancing or anything. And he's the one who said not to make too much of this, that anything could happen, and that we weren't...committed to each other or anything. But...at the same time, I feel like I would be doing something wrong by going out with Trevor. But going out with Trevor would be so easy, y'know? He's there, he's in Bahia Bay, he's -"

"Healthy?"

Lor's eyes shot over to Tish. "It's not that simple."

"I _know_ it's not," Tish assured her. "But...tell me that the thought hasn't occurred to you."

"Has it ever occurred to you?" Lor shot back.

Tish rocked back on her heels at the question, but she held Lor's gaze. "Once."

Lor's jaw dropped. "Really?"

"Really," Tish told her. "Once. When Tino first came into the hospital. He was railing against everything about the situation in one of his more lucid moments, and he accused me of just being there out of habit, that I just wanted out of our relationship, so I could be free to get on with my life. And yes, very briefly, I thought about it.

"What made you decide to stay with him?" Lor asked.

Tish shrugged. "I don't know. My gut? My heart?"

"I wish I had your guts," Lor told her.

Tish sighed. There were a million things she could say to Lor at this moment, and one hell of a lot of things she _wanted_ to say to her, but she just couldn't bring herself to say any of them.

"Come on," she said at last, reaching down to pull Lor up from off the floor. "Let's get upstairs before Carver thinks we drowned in a bottle of water or something."

8 - * - * - 8

Lor heard his laughter coming from Tino's room before they went in. "Oh boy," she muttered.

Tish looked surprised. "Seems Phil took Tino up on his invitation."

"It would appear so," Lor agreed. "I don't know if I'm ready."

"You're ready," Tish told her. "Just go in and you'll see him and that'll be that. You don't have to say anything about Trevor and the dance or anything like that. It doesn't matter if you're just going to say no anyway."

"What if I'm going to say yes?"

Tish paused to look at her friend, who did look genuinely torn over the question and just a little helpless about it. "Well...think long and hard about it first, okay?"

"Okay."

When the girls walked into the room, they found Tino sitting in the chair, while Carver had stolen his bed, and Phil was in a wheelchair with a broad grin on his face. All three boys turned to face the girls as they entered, and both Tino and Phil lit up even further at the sight of them.

"Hey," Phil said, spinning his chair around in a manner which had Tish cringing. "I knew we forgot to hang the 'no girls allowed' sign outside the clubhouse."

Lor stuck her tongue out at him. "You really want to go with no girls?"

He grinned at her. "Well, there'd be things I'd miss."

"Alright, before this get too...icky," Carver interjected, "let's delicately change the subject." He paused for a second as he observed Lor and Tish. "I thought you were getting a bottle of water."

Tish heard Lor's very quiet groan but hoped sincerely that the boys didn't. She tried to cover it up, offering, "They were sold out of them at the cafe. And Lor was right, anyway – there's free water all over the place, why do I need a bottle? I could have a cup. Or a glass. Or even one o fhtose silly little paper cones that they put with some of them. The dispensers that is."

She gave a tittering little laugh, thankfully timed perfectly to cover up Lor moaning again, presumably, this time, at her moronic little monologue. Tish wondered when she'd been replaced with some babbling fool, but realised that the longer anyone in the room went without talking, the more likely she was to blurt out that Lor had been asked by a guy to go to the Valentine's Dance.

She was, therefore slightly relieved, when Phil cleared his throat. "Well, hate to break this party up before it even gets going, but I have a date with destiny. Well, with Dr. Michaelson, anyway. So I'll see you all later."

"When will you be free?" Lor asked.

"Half an hour or so," he assured her. "Come and see me then?"

"Sure."

He gave her a smile before steering his wheelchair toward them, taking her hand and kissing it in a very courtly manner, before accelerating past them and into the hall.

"Why is he in a wheelchair?" Lor asked Tino.

"Something to do with his leg," the other boy told her. "Had a complication of some sort during the week. They almost took him in for surgery. Had a clot or something, his leg lost circulation a little. So they're getting it back to rights before he does anything too ambitious. Like walking on it."

"Huh," Lor said.

Tish watched the blonde girl out of the corner of her eye, wondering at her reaction to this latest news. But Lor remained completely passive, beyond a just-detectable sense of worry for her friend.

"But he's going to be alright, yeah? I mean, he'll walk again?" she asked Tino.

Tino raised an eyebrow. "Why aren't you asking him this?" 

"I will, I will," she back-pedalled rapidly. "I just...you're here, I can't talk to him for half-an-hour, and I was wanting to...know."

Tino shrugged. "He told me he's not worried, that it wasn't even serious and they didn't open him up. I gather he's been through this before."

"Why does that somehow not reassure me?" Carver muttered.

Part of Tish wanted to scold him for saying such things, but she realised that it probably just saved the rest of them from doing so – if Tino and Lor weren't thinking that, she'd have been very surprised indeed.

"Well, I'll talk to him later," Lor said, shaking her head slowly. "How've you been?" she asked Tino.

Tino gave her a look that suggested worry, but said, "I'm feeling a lot better this week."

Tish allowed herself to get pulled into the familiarity of their conversation, and decided to worry about her friend and her love life later.

8 - * - * - 8

"Hey," Lor called from the doorway. "Can I come in?"

"Of course," Phil told her, looking over from the TV. "For once, it's just me."

"Nice to not have to wait for a gap in your social calendar for a change," Lor agreed. "How've you been?"

Phil shrugged. "I've been okay. Bit of a lousy week. I had a problem with blood getting to my leg," he told her, tapping the shin in question. "But Dr. Michaelson says it's fine now. They won't even have to open me up, which is good, and I'll have full use and feeling back to it in no time at all."

"Well, that's a relief," Lor said, sitting down in the chair next to the bed.

Phil raised an eyebrow at this choice, after she had sat with him on the bed the previous week, but opted to leave the subject alone. "And what about you? How's the week treated you?"

"Oh, you know, this and that, nothing much." She sighed. "The whole school is in a tizzy, but I tried to stay clear of it."

"What are they in a tizzy about?"

"Bahia Bay Council holds an annual 'Valentine's Day Ball', and the high school holds a scaled down version for the kids. Back home its everyone talking about party dresses and who asked who and all that."

Phil's eyes slipped half-closed. "Oh. Sounds like a drag."

"It is, it really is," she agreed, nodding enthusiastically, before deciding that maybe she was overdoing it a little. "I mean, I imagine it's fun, to a degree, but all that trouble of getting dressed up and everything...I can think of things I'd rather do with my time."

"Oh. Good."

She became vaguely aware that she'd lost Phil somewhere along the way here. "Sorry, I don't mean to keep banging on about it. I'll stop now."

He shook his head. "No, no, you're fine," he said, sticking his hands behind his head. "So you're not going to go?"

"Well, I'd need a date," she said, "so no. I mean, that would mean someone would have to ask me out."

"You could ask someone," Phil suggested.

Lor paused. This conversation she'd been extremely fearful of having was happening, largely due to her own inability to keep her mouth under control, but it wasn't going as she'd feared at all, anyway. It was going quite differently indeed.

"You see, that hadn't occurred to me," she told him, trying to get her head around the concept. "I didn't think...well, I thought you wouldn't - "

"I wouldn't what?"

She sank back into the chair, surprised that she'd slid so far to the front of it. "Never mind."

"I wouldn't like it?" he asked. "That I wouldn't want you going out with someone else?"

She didn't say anything. She just stared at him, wondering where this was all coming from. Not that it wasn't _correct_, but it was definitely not what she was expecting.

"Well..." 

"Well I'm sorry," he snapped. "I'm sorry that I'm not going to be asking you to the dance. Considering that I'm hospitalised. And that my leg isn't fully functional."

"I wasn't expecting you to ask," she said. "I just – you know what? Never mind. Let's not talk about this."

"No, let's," Phil said. "So, what? You expected me to be the kind of boyfriend who goes to dances? Who walks you along the beach at night, or something? Sorry. I don't do that. I just lie here and get sick and harangue the nurses and try to keep the crappy food they give me down."

"I thought you weren't my boyfriend."

Phil's jaw snapped shut and went completely rigid. "Well, then, I guess I'm just not what you expected at all."

"I wasn't expecting anything from you," she said, rising from the chair. "But I was definitely not expecting this."

"You knew what you were getting into," he told her. "I just don't see why it's taken you this long to realise what it actually meant."

"I don't even _want _to go to the stupid dance!" she exploded. "I don't care about dances and I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. I thought you were just a really cool guy in unusual circumstances, but you know what? I don't like you when you're like this. You're being a jerk."

"Well, sorry that this doesn't exactly bring out the best in me."

"Do you want me to go out with someone else?" she asked.

"You can do what you want," he told her.

"Maybe I will." She crossed the room in long strides and yanked the door open. "I don't think I can talk to you right now."

"Fine!"

Lor stormed across the room and yanked the door open, gripping it tightly. She turned back to look at Phil - part of her hoping he'd say something, anything - an apology, something to make her stay, something to make her want to leave even more.

But he smiply sat there, a conflicted look on his face, and said nothing.

So she walked out the door.

8 - * - * - 8

_No, I haven't forgotten about this story. There are a few chapters left in me. I've got another story or two on the boil as well, of course, but I'm working at it. Hope you're still enjoying it._

_Reviews, suggestions, questions and commentary welcome as ever._

_Acepilot_


	9. People Ain't No Good

**The Hospital Story  
**Acepilot

8 - * - * - 8  
Chapter 9: People Ain't No Good  
8 - * - * - 8

Kimi Watanabe raised an eyebrow at the tableau that she stumbled in on. Told by Lucy Carmichael that Phil was in the rec-room, she had rather expected to find him relaxing on one of the couches, watching ancient sitcoms or something.

She had rather not expected to find him pacing up and down, and gesticulating wildly to a young blonde man in a hospital gown who was laying on the couch and nodding understandingly.

She watched as Phil paced, reined in only by the IV drip that was hooked into his arm - every time the stand he was dragging moved slightly, he spun back the other way. Kimi predicted disaster for this habit - sooner or later the stand would topple over - but she knew better than to tell him this, especially not while he was in mid-rant. She decided not to interject and instead simply stood there and listened to Phil as he explained to the other boy what was on his mind: "I mean," he was saying, "I'm not a mind reader. And I don't know what's going on in her life, or what she wants, necessarily. She comes in talking about a dance she knows I can't go to, and what am I meant to do? Ask her if she wants to go? Why would I do that? Why would she want me to? This is the problem with girls, man - they _don't work on logic_."

"Maybe this is a personal difference," the blonde suggested, "but I tend to find girls logical to a fault. Then again, I'm going out with Tish, so..."

"Well, I don't know what I was supposed to do," Phil said. "Tell her no, don't go to the dance? She seemed really keen on the idea."

"Which in itself is strange," the other boy observed. "Lor has never wanted to go to a dance in her life."

Kimi groaned, hanging her head in her hands, an in doing so drew the attention of the two males toward her.

Phil raised an eyebrow. "Hi, Kim. How's it going?"

"Oh, you know, fine," she said, shaking her head and stepping closer to the two patients. "I don't think we've been introduced," she said to the boy on the couch.

"Kimi," Phil said, gesturing extravagantly to his new confidante, "this is Tino Tonitini. He's a patient here and one of Lor's best friends. Tino, this is my best friend, Kimi Watanabe. Now that we all know each other, does anyone, I don't know, maybe want to help me a bit?"

"What did you do?" Kimi asked, sliding into a free armchair. They were the only people in the room, which was good as she got the feeling Phil had done something kind of stupid and didn't particularly want an audience.

"I see you still default to assuming that _I've_ done something stupid," Phil grumbled.

"My mother always taught me to back the sure thing," Kimi told him. "Come on, out with it. What did you do?"

"He told Lor to go out with someone else," Tino informed her when Phil was not immediately forthcoming. "There's a dance coming up back home and Phil and she got in a fight over it."

"You told her to _date_ another guy?" Kimi asked. "Phil, even for you, that's..."

"I know, I know," Phil growled. "I just...I didn't know what to say. I didn't even know what the hell was going on. I mean, what was I meant to do?"

"Not tell her to go with somebody else, for a start," Kimi told him. "You've basically just said to her, 'I don't really care about you.'"

"I care about her, of course I care about her," Phil protested. "I mean, it's not like we're going out or anything, but I definitely care - "

"Hold on," Tino pulled him up. "You're _not really going out or anything_. Explain that one to me?"

"Well," Phil began, stammering, "it's not like we're rushing into anything. We just kind of...see each other. Each week. And we talk. And we kiss. It's nice."

"It's Wally," Kimi observed.

Tino looked baffled. "Who's Wally?"

"This has _nothing_ to do with Wally," Phil said, his tone cooling several degrees.

"Oh, it has everything to do with Wally," Kimi told him. "You bailed on that because you were both scared."

"_Who_ is _Wally_?" Tino all but demanded.

Kimi turned to him. "Wally was Phil's on-again, off-again girlfriend since we were in junior high," she explained. "Captain of their soccer team. They broke up just after Phil had his first operation."

"It wasn't like that," Phil bit out. "We...we just decided our time was over."

/

Kimi stared at him, and he stared back, level and assured, until colour started creeping into his face.

"They broke up," Kimi continued, her voice not modulating one iota, "because of issues surrounding Phil's illness."

Tino did not look surprised, and turned to face Phil again. "Your issues, her issues, or a combination of the two?"

Phil, almost as if he had forgotten Tino was there while he was having his little staring contest with Kimi, turned to his fellow patient. "A combination of the two," he said, slowly. "I was trying very hard not to feel sorry for myself, she was unable to deal with me being sick, and we...went our seperate ways. It just...wasn't working, after a point."

"So...what? You're afraid that was going to happen with Lor, so you just...didn't quite get involved?" Tino asked. "Tell yourself that you're not really dating her, because you're here, and you can't date. But really, it's just so when she leaves you for someone who doesn't lie in a hospital bed half the day, you can tell yourself it was nothing, you weren't even dating her?"

"I take it we've hit upon a sore spot," Phil suggested.

Tino shrugged. "Well, when they let me into the hospital, I was a bit...distraught. When I was awake, anyway. I lashed out at everything - and everyone - but no-one moreso than Tish."

"Yes, but you're in a relationship with Tish," Phil pointed out.

"And, other than saying it loudly and insistently, in what sense are you _not_ in a relationship with Lor?"

Phil bit his lip and didn't answer.

8 - * - * - 8

"I've got to ask."

Lor nearly leapt out of her skin as her best friend all-but swooped down on the table she was sitting at. "Jeez, Tish. You could make some noise or something before leaping out like that."

"I do not _leap_," Tish said. "I sidle."

"Let's not get into that," Lor suggested. "What is it that you have to ask?"

"What happened, exactly, when you went to see Phil on Saturday. I mean, you went in nervous, and came out...well, you were all but fuming. I don't understand."

"There's not much to understand," Lor told her. "Phil and I talked about things, and I guess we had a bit of a disagreement."

"What kind of disagreement?" Tish asked. "Did you tell him about Trevor?"

"No, I did not. I didn't have to."

Tish raised an eyebrow. "Okay, what does that mean?"

Lor bit her lip. "I mentioned the dance, but not that anyone invited me. He suggested that maybe I should ask someone. He implied that I knew he was hardly going to be accompanying me to dances in the near future when I started...whatever it was I started with him, and that I have no-one to blame but myself if my expectiations get crushed. We had a brief, but hurtful, shouting match, and I left."

Tish's jaw had dropped sometime toward the beginning of the story and had never gone back up. "I...I'm hardly sure where to begin."

"Where it ended was more than enough," Lor said. "I guess he's right, in a way. What was I expecting, him to ask me to go? It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of."

"To apologise for not being able to take you?" Tish suggested.

Lor didn't answer that, instead picking further at her lunch with a fork before shooting up from the bench she was seated on. "I need to walk. You want to walk?"

"I could walk," Tish agreed slowly, rising from her chair a bit more cautiously than Lor had done so and falling into step with her best friend. "I take it this has all gotten a bit...stressful for you."

"I thought I could do it like this, you know," Lor explained. As she spoke, she led Tish away from the table at which they had been eating lunch and "In many ways, what's always scared me off about...the _idea _of relationships is that they are, by their very nature, so...serious. This trust you have to invest in another person...I guess I've just never trusted anyone that much. No-one I've been attracted to, anyway. So the idea of this thing that I have with Phil - a really sweet guy who wants to be my friend, who's attracted to me and who i'm attracted to, but we both know it, so there's none of that awkwardness you get with just a mutual crush...we could talk, and laugh, and make out. I mean, it's hardly an ideal circumstance to meet someone in, sure, but I thought I could do this. It was everything I wanted out of a relationship with none of the things that scared me."

"So what went wrong?" Tish asked, although she suspected she already knew the answer.

"I don't know," Lor admitted. "Well, I mean, I know, but...I just couldn't do it, basically. I couldn't continue this...whatever it was I had with Phil. I want it to mean something to him. Because - and I didn't mean for this to be the case - but...well, it means something to me."

Tish stopped still and smiled so wide it looked like it hurt. "Oh, Lor!"

Lor recoiled from the sickly sweet tone of voice her friend had suddenly taken on. "Oh me what?"

"You want to be his girlfriend!"

Lor rolled her eyes. "Well...yeah, I guess I do."

"Sorry, this just feels like a really big moment to me."

"It was bound to happen some time."

They resumed their stroll, and Tish decided it was her turn to kick off the conversation. "He'll come around, you know. He's just feeling a bit insecure at the moment."

"What gives you that impression?" Lor asked. "He seemed plenty secure when I spoke to him."

"He's angry," Tish explained. "I don't imagine for a second that you can take what you learned from one person and wholesale apply it to another, but...well, I think this is more Phil being angry with the fact that he can't be what he wants to be, what he thinks you _should_ want. What he doesn't understand is that isn't necessarily what you _actually_ want."

"I don't even know what I want," Lor groaned. She sat down on a nearby bench and watched out over the school field, where some of the kids from the football team were scrimmaging. "I mean, I do. Sort of."

"What about Trevor?"

Lor raised an eyebrow. "What about him?"

Tish shrugged. "He's interested in you, obviously. Did you ever answer him one way or another about going to the dance?"

"Not in so many words," Lor told her, cringing away from the question. "I mean, he asked again on Monday, and I told him I wasn't sure if I'd be able to go."

Tish winced. "So, you didn't actually say you _didn't want to_ go with _him_, then."

"I'm perfectly capable of keeping track of my own mistakes, thank you."

"Well, do you want to go out with him?"

Lor looked, for a moment, deep in thought, but ultimately she shook her head. "I don't think so. Maybe I should. He's a good guy, and we share interests, and he's cute enough, but...he's not Phil."

Tish smiled and ruffled her friend's hair. Lor ducked away with an exasperated look on her face.

8 - * - * - 8

"It's cliche," Phil argued.

"It's romantic," Tino opined from his wheelchair.

"It's tacky."

"Roses are tacky," Kimi told him. "Come up with something original."

The three of them were walking slowly through the aisles of the hospital's gift shop/chemist/convenience store/supermarket, Kimi pushing Tino in his wheelchair while Phil dragged his IV along behind him, scouring the shelves for something that might be considered an appropriate peace offering for Phil to send Lor. He had insisted he wasn't buying a Valentine, but Kimi had described it as 'simply something to get her here'.

"It's not me," Phil said. "I mean, as _romantic_ as it may be, it's Valentine's Day. It's a stupid celebration and I've never participated in it before in my life."

"That's what we call _progress_," Kimi said.

"It's not really _her_ either, to tell you the truth," Tino said. "I mean, I don't think I've seen her give anyone a Valentine since about the seventh grade."

"Who did she give it to?" Phil asked, genuinely curious. He picked up a copy of _Oh, The Places You'll Go!_ from a rack of Dr. Seuss books and flicked through it.

"She was meant to give it to Thompson Oberman," Tino told him. "He was this eighth grader she had the crush of a lifetime on. Really nice guy and he was even kind of into her...when she was able to keep her head. When she was younger she was a bit more prone to bouts of...well, going a bit loopy over him. In the end when she went to give it to him, she suffered from one of those moments and she wimped out and gave it to Carver. He gave up teasing her about it last year. But until then he gave her a Valentine every year."

Phil grinned at that thought but tried to clear his head. "Well, sweet, but doesn't really help me know what to get her. What are you getting Tish?"

"Orchids," Tino told him.

Phil was mildly surprised by this very quick and definite answer. "The natural choice."

"It is for Tish," his friend explained. "In fact, if you'd be so kind as to wheel me over to the florist..."

Kimi did as requested, and Phil, struggling for ideas anyway, tagged along to the corner of the store overflowing with flowers. On the way there, he picked up a box of hair dye, reading over the instructions. "How do you think I'd look with blonde hair?"

"This is meant to be about finding Valentine's gifts," Kimi pointed out, snatching the box off him. "And you'd look _terrible_."

Phil was slightly taken aback by this declaration, but decided she was probably right. "Thanks."

"Always a pleasure."

Tino reached up to tap the bell on the florist's counter, and moments later a short man with greying hair appeared out of the mass of flowers on the other side. Covered in petals and water he looked as if he'd grown out of the plants he was tending to. "Can I help you kids? Oh, sorry sir."

Phil took a moment to realise this comment was directed at him, and quickly reached up to tuck the errant grey hairs that were peeking out from under his bandana away. "I'm only sixteen."

"Oh, sorry," the other man apologised quickly, "I...well. Anyway. How can I help you all?"

"We're wanting to know if you do delivery," Tino told him.

"Yes, we do."

"Excellent. I need five orchids delivered, thank you."

"To what room?" the florist asked, jotting down the order on a nearby pad.

"To Room 11E, at about 11am on Friday," Tino told him.

The florist looked momentarily baffled. "I don't know that there's a room 11E in the hospital."

"Oh, no, not in the hospital," Tino explained. "We're patients. We want these delivered to people on the outside. At Bahia Bay Secondary College."

The florist shook his head, slowly. "I don't think we can do that."

"Please?" Tino asked. "It's really important. I'm stuck in here and I probably won't be able to get to see my girlfriend on Valentine's Day and I need you to please, please do this for me? We'll pay."

"We will?" Phil muttered under his breath.

"Quiet," Kimi slapped him on the wrist.

The florist looked doubtful, but nodded slowly. "Alright. There's a florist I know in Bahia Bay, I can probably work something out." The man turned to face Phil. "What did you want to send, sir?"

Suddenly the centre of attention, Phil's mind went blank.

"Something to give the imrpession I care about her?" Phil speculated. "Is there a flower that says that?"

"Purple roses indicate passion," the florist suggested.

"That might be a bit much," Phil told him.

"Lilys are nice," Kimi offered.

"I don't think they're very Lor," Tino said. "In fact, I don't think they're very _you_ either. It'll look like you're trying too hard - doing something like flowers. Maybe it should be something that'll mean something to her. Because it means something to you."

Phil scoffed. "Yeah, because so many things just leap to - " he paused. "Mind."

"What happened there?" Kimi asked.

"Something just leapt to mind." He turned to face the florist. "Have you got a small box?"

**8 - * - * - 8**

_reviews are always appreciated._


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